By Krisztina Hogye
I’m not afraid to admit that when I get in a bad mood, I go off on a complaining tangent. I make a fuss about something and then all of a sudden I’m whining about all my other problems and throughout all of this, I sound like the most ungrateful human on Earth.
My friend and I came up with a challenge to entirely stop complaining for five days straight.
“Wait. I need to complain about how I won’t complain for five days before we start!”
Once we stopped complaining about the challenge itself, we committed to not complaining for five days. Here’s what I learned from it.
I complain a lot more than I thought.
I used to think that I never internalized problems. I’d always tell someone about every little problem I had. My feelings were always out there in the open. The first day of the challenge, I realized that I am very petty and complain a lot internally. I wasn’t so aware of this before. I caught myself complaining mentally at least five times before breakfast. I know I complain a lot to other people, but I complain so much more in my head!
I need self-reflection and self-control.
I decided to analyze before taking control over my thoughts. I find that it’s important to look within yourself and acknowledge what your complaints are about. It’s best to catch yourself in the act of complain-thinking and see whether you are merely petty, or if there is something underlying it. If you can change the circumstance then that’s great, but if you can’t, then you have to find a way to let it go. If you cannot change a situation, then you have to change yourself. Let go, and go on with your day with glee.
There’s so much beauty around me.
As soon as I let go of the things that were bothering me, I began seeing the beauty in things that I complained about. It’s harder to look at the good side of things but it’s so much better. You feel like a better person when giving gratitude and realizing the little things around that make you happy. This is how you become a more positive person.
I complain about things that aren’t my business.
I realized that I complain so much that I even complain about other people’s business. These complaints are judgments and are maybe even out of jealousy of the people around me. I caught myself a couple times talking negatively about other people’s lives. At one point, I realized that saying negative things about others’ circumstances counted as complaining, too, and that the person listening to me was probably not happy about my negative energy. People don’t like listening to you complaining. And they dislike it even more when they have to listen to you complaining about things that have nothing to do with you.
Complaining is destructive to our species.
When complaining, we give off negative energy. And this negative energy is contagious. When you are in a happy mood, the people you are hanging with become happy too. A smile makes another person smile. Unfortunately this is also the case with complaining. When I complain, my negative mood affects another person’s mood and they too begin complaining. It’s just like the dominos analogy. One person infects another person with the negative energy, then the person goes off to infect another person and in little to no time, everybody is thinking negative thoughts. I think this is why we all complain so much. We are used to it. And now it’s become a habit we need to break.
Complaining is a waste of time.
The more I caught myself complaining, the more I realized how unnecessary these complaints were. There is so much more to experience everyday than just these negative thoughts. Complaining is the biggest time-wasting activity. Let go of the ‘problems’ and you’ll create space and time for thoughts and words of love. Once I caught myself making a fuss about something totally irrelevant, I let go and realized I now had the time to think about good things. This is when I thought to myself, “Why didn’t I let go of this sooner, this is a much better feeling.”
There’s a power in getting friends involved.
Finally, I learned that challenges are a lot more fun (and successful) when others are doing it with you, and if you are both serious, then you end up pushing yourselves more. I was doing the challenge with a friend and at the end of each day we shared our thoughts and any challenges we faced. Even this was hard, because we weren’t allowed to complain while all we wanted to do was complain about how hard this challenge was. I pushed myself more because it was motivating that my friend was going through the same journey.
My experience with this challenge is that it’s not completely possible to shut off the complaining when the decision is made to do so. Truth be told, I complained a lot throughout the no-complaining-challenge. What the challenge really was about for me—as it turns out—was becoming aware of my complaining patterns. By becoming aware of my whining and criticizing, I was able to complain less. If you are a complainer like me, it is pretty unrealistic to stop complaining once and for all in just one day. Like most bad habits, you can’t break it overnight. It is a process and a learning experience about you and your limits.
Every time I opened my whiny mouth, I tried to catch myself before completely going off on a tantrum and word vomiting it all out, and this did get easier throughout the days. I tried to revert my attention to something positive and proactive. I tried to see my options, focused on what I could have changed in the now and if I couldn’t change the situation, I took a deep breath, let go of the thoughts and converted my thinking to fresh ideas.
I’d now like to challenge you to try going five days without complaining to see how aware you can become of your thinking and speaking patterns. Sorry, yesterday was the deadline for all complaints. It’s time for the #NoComplainingChallenge.