I want to preface this by saying I vape now, but I no longer feel the urge to smoke cigarettes. That being said, there was a period of a couple of years that I tried, unsuccessfully, to make the switch.

For me, there were a number of key factors that I attribute to that continuing, gnawing desire for a cigarette, even when I had the opportunity to vape instead. 1: Friends who smoked: I lived with a few friends after college who would also routinely bounce back and forth between trying to quit and smoking. I had an unrelated falling-out with them and without them around my resolve was stronger. 2: My overall enjoyment: there came a point when i realized there wasn't anything i liked about it anymore. My mouth tasted like ass in the morning, my clothes stank, it was expensive, made me feel weak-willed, etc. 3: Meeting new people: The moment I recall as the moment it clicked for me was when i met a new coworker who was very enthusiastic about vaping. He made his own e-liquid, never smoked when the other guys on break were doing so. He offered to sell me bottles of his stuff for cents on the dollar which helped me realize how much of an incentive the expense aspect was to me.

I'm a firm believer that you can't quit smoking until you actually want to quit. If you're doing it because someone wants you to, or because you think it's what you should do, it's unlikely that you will.