All those "bad" things -- smoking, overeating, gambling, alcohol, list goes on and on -- are easy ways to fill void. Smokers will be able to relate to this one -- if you've just had a fight with your family, what do you do? You go for a smoke. Smoking makes it feel like problem goes away. (I call this "smokescreen." Har har!)

I'll let you in on a little secret--the real reason it's so hard to quit is not nicotine. It's this void-filling. When you quit smoking (or any bad habit), you're suddenly faced with real life. All those stresses and needs that you've been avoiding? There they are, pulling at your coat tails, yelling, "Pay attention to me! Pay attention to me!" If you got in touch with your real inner needs and took baby steps to start fulfilling them, you would actually have little desire for cigarettes. It's true! I see it happen time and again in my Stop Smoking Coaching practice.

How do you do that, you ask? Here are some baby steps that you can start trying out now: •Next time, instead of taking that quick fix--stop. •Have a little quiet time and listen to what your insides have been trying to tell you. •Try journaling -- don't edit your thoughts, just write. •Some people find meditation and yoga to be great accesses. •Try deep breathing. •Go for a quiet, leisurely walk by yourself. •Personally, I find it easiest to just start noticing where in life I seem to be avoiding things most, or if I want something more immediate and active, doing a mindmap (a word drawing) to figure out what I'm really thinking.

For each person, key to figuring out your needs is different. Play around with it, don't give up! You'll be glad you did! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jill Binder is a Stop Smoking Coach with a 90 day program to show people how to quit smoking forever, with a 100% success rate. She is author of "What's Your Smoking Type?" and has appeared on radio on "Radioactive Women" and newspaper Metro Toronto Today.

You can sign up for her newsletter, "YourTurn - Turn Your Weaknesses Into Your Perfect Life" at http://www.StopSmokingCoach.ca.

Jill Binder is a Stop Smoking Coach with a 90 day program to show people how to quit smoking forever, with a 100% success rate. She is the author of "What's Your Smoking Type?" and has appeared on the radio on "Radioactive Women" and the newspaper Metro Toronto Today.

Do you know why people try to steal your dreams? It’s because they don’t have any of their own! That’s right. They are unhappy, unmotivated people. More than likely, they’ve had their dreams knocked down once or twice in their life and never recovered from it. They just stopped dreaming.

You might as well stop living if you’re going to stop reaching for something higher. Don’t let someone else’s small minded thinking keep you from achieving higher goals for yourself. Take back what belongs to you and start living your dreams.

As my late father would say, “Don’t let life happen. Make it happen!”