How much would you be willing to pay to instantly quit smoking? Think about it carefully, the maximum sum of money, to walk away from cigarettes for good.

I was at the birthday party of a colleague of mine, who proclaimed that his “birthday resolution” was to quit smoking. All of us within earshot of this statement, instantly rolled our eyes. Countless times have we witnessed our friend’s quitting attempts, and countless times have we heard the excuses for his eventual relapse.

Almost daring him to quit, I blurted out my challenge: If you are serious about quitting, write me a check right now for $1000. I promise to hold onto the check indefinitely, and will only cash it if you smoke. I could instantly see his eyes light up. He ran into his room, and within moments produced his checkbook. Everyone was shocked… he actually wrote me the check.

Granted this little scheme has a few holes in it, but it did provoke some thought. Firstly, that many people are so desperate to quit smoking, they’d be willing to throw large sums of money at the problem, and most importantly that this might actually work if planned correctly.

Getting people to put a dollar value on something as intangible as quitting smoking, might actually encourage them to truely calculate how important it is to them. If they can put a dollar amount, I’d double that value, write the amount out to a friend (that you trust!), and if you do have the willpower… no cost to you. If you don’t have the willpower, beg your friend to pay for some rehab with his or her new found wealth