Smoke-free together in 66 days - the story of Daniel and Chiara
Today we want to introduce you to Daniel and Chiara. They've been living a quite healthy lifestyle, doing plenty of sports, eating healthy and having friends around them - everything you can ask for right? But wait, there was just one thing that didn't quite fit in, a bad habit they wanted to quit for a long time without succeeding - smoking. No matter which approach they tried, in the end they would always fall back into their bad habit. But that changed when they tried the 66-day habit tracker. After reaching out to Daniel and Chiara for some feedback on our product, they offered us to answer some questions and share their story to hopefully inspire others!
First of all, thanks for sharing your experience! How did you find out about us?
"We didn't haha! Someone gave your habit tracker to us as a gift for Christmas. First we were like what is this? A piece of wood with holes in it - but we kind of liked the simplicity and the design too. At the time we were traveling a lot for our jobs, and had just moved to our new Apartment in Prague, so Chiara was on the hunt for some cool interior decoration anyway. We thought we've got a bad habit and this wooden board so we have to at least give it a chance"
You said you've tried to quit smoking before, how did that go?
"Honestly, we've made several attempts to quit smoking but none of them went too well. It started with setting new year's resolutions - and it's not that we weren't ambitious enough or something. When it came to personal- or career goals we would be rather overachieving, without sounding too confident here. But it seemed like smoking was this one bad habit were our ambition simply wouldn't apply. We've tried some apps, set some reminders on our phones or used a paper calendar to count the days. Sometimes we've built up a little streak of a few days but then on the next party or social event, one of us would slip again - it was so hard to stay consistent.
And how about using our habit tracker?
"When we arrived back to our apartment after Christmas, it was a few days into January already so first we thought about waiting until February to start on a fresh month. But luckily we called each other out that this would be just another excuse! So on the same day we've put up the 66-day habit tracker in our kitchen - we decided that would be the best place as it would remind us while having our morning coffee and getting our days organized. Well and the next morning we were already into our next attempt of becoming smoke free. A day turned into two, two into a week and soon after we completed 1 month(!) without smoking a cigarette. Looking at our streak of wooden pins on the board, we couldn't believe it - from that day on we knew we both knew that we would go all the way!
What would you say made the difference after all - was it just our wooden board?
"I mean now we gotta say yes right (both laughing) - no to be honest it helped us quite a bit. For sure, putting it up in the kitchen was a good choice, because there was no way we would not look at it at least once every morning - so that was a great reminder. Putting in the wooden pins was super satisfying for the first couple of weeks but at some point we got used to it. But by then, we were also keeping each other accountable not to break our streak. Trying to change a habit together was definitely more fun than doing it alone, so we could recommend that to all couples or good friends out there. What we also liked about it is that you could only fit one habit on the little blackboard - so you would pick what's most important rather than trying to change too many thinks in your life at once. All in all, your habit tracker helped us a lot for sure as it felt like a completely new approach for us. But in saying that it's also no magic solution that always works for everyone, you've gotta do your part as well!"