Is This The Secret to Happiness?

We’re all guilty of this, whether it’s over our very busy daily schedules; or over how ugly our kitchen cabinet looks or maybe even how untidy the whole apartment looks and there’s so much to be done within so little time with no one else around to help out; we’ve all been there.

Well, take this as an advice; pause for a second and stop the complaining cause that might just be the key to helping you keep your moods up even while you still have to deal with the mess. 

It’s a Sunday afternoon, I’m exhausted already because I’ve been working all day (yes, even on a Sunday) and there’s still so much to get done, to make things worse, I have a deadline to meet up with so there’s also pressure. Then it starts raining and then I hear a steady drip, drip, drip coming from the corner of my front window; yes you guessed right, my ceiling has sprung a leak. Then just as I’m about to stop the leak from wetting the whole place a call comes ringing into my phone; it’s my mom and she truly wants to know how I’m doing.

Immediately I’m tempted to lash out and vent about all how my day has been a mess but instead of doing that I pause, take a deep breath and reply her; “I’m doing great mom, thanks” 

I know some of you might not agree entirely with my methods, some would even argue that venting might help (and you may be right), however for the past three weeks I decided that not a single complaint would come from my lips and I have consistently resisted the urge to complain to myself or someone else.

So before you mistake me for some preternaturally perky Pollyanna, let me quickly mention that this is not the typical me, I’m only currently taking part in a 21 days “no complaints challenge”. This is a program put together by a guy named Will Bowen. He is the founder of the Complaint Free World and has spent years urging people to give up moaning about their lives of living a life that is complaint free. His argument has been that whenever we complain, we focus on what’s wrong; thereby perpetuating the flaw and he also has the science to back this claim up.

Studies carried out at the University of Missouri on 400 girls revealed that whenever the girls complained, feelings of anxiety and depression were triggered and this was also shown to be true for grown up women too. Miriam Akhtar, a psychologist in Britain says that complaining evokes negative emotions in us and keeps us in that state. Complaining has become so prevalent in our culture that it’s almost becoming a status symbol; I’m sure you’ve heard the cliché “my life is insane”.

Whenever we complain or brag about how much we’ve got going for us, it’s almost like a marker of how important we are and this has become so accepted these days, says Brigid Schulte, the author of “Overwhelmed”.  

Psychology explains that complaining with no real purpose doesn’t make us happier. It’s not that we should stop sharing our feelings whenever we are hurt or angry or that we shouldn’t point out things we think are not right, however expressive i.e. venting just for the sake of it is destructive. Rather, we can choose to just write it down or take a pause and ask ourselves if truly the evidence supports that the situation is really as bad as we make it to be. It’s very easy for us to get caught up in the cycle of complaining and catastrophizing.

I’m not immune to a good whine. I usually find myself complaining about my travels (cabs, planes), about not having enough hours in a day and about my inability to resist taking a break during work to look through my phone. So it’s not like I’m saying that it is wrong to find a few things about life distasteful; I’m simply saying that we have to make a practice of disrupting ourselves and making sure that these thoughts don’t become automatic.

One of the persons I told about my 21 day challenge responded to me saying that choosing not to complain is like refusing saying no to your favorite snack or refusing to listen to gossip, it’s almost not acceptable. However, I am only trying to say that we need to constantly remind ourselves that we do not want to live through life like this. 

So I’m not saying it has been easy, there are times when I caught myself almost slipping back into the “complaint mode”. One time I was almost at the verge of lashing out on my sister because she was running late to the gym even though she first had to clean up and organize in the house before the workout period. When I told my husband later that evening about how I plan to live complaint free, pointing out the incident that happened with my sister earlier in the day; he laughed and said “then what are we going to be talking about? Because come to think of it, that’s what we mostly talk about at the end of the day, how our day went, the traffic, the workload, the gym, the people we come in contact with etc.

So when my husband forgot to take out the garbage the following day, I reminded myself not to whine. Instead, I took the advice I learnt from Daniel Habit, the author of “Inquebrantable”, who taught me to learn to reinforce negative actions with positive thoughts. For instance, I only had to remind myself that’s about the only thing my husband forgets to do and immediately I felt better about the whole situation.  

So now I tend to look at things from a different perspective all together, for instance if I kept complaining about my husband’s forgetfulness with taking out the garbage; would that make me not forget it again? Does that then mean that I failed? If my roof is leaking why not just call a plumber instead of complaining?

I can say that since my complaint-free challenge ended, I have come to realize how trivial most of the things we complain about are; a slow supermarket checkout, a husband that forgets to take out the garbage etc. I also do not believe that it would be possible to live a life that is completely free of complaints, in fact there are times when venting seems to be very effective with dowsing anger and uneasiness; but cutting back on complaining, I won’t complain about that.

Here are a few tips you can apply if you find yourself whining to often about every little thing

1. Seek out silver lining
   This is like thinking things differently and finding the positives out of negative situations. For instance, rather that complaining about your partner moving stuff around, you may just see it as his own way of trying to make things look better arranged and organized in the house 

2. Set a time Limit
   Give yourself a time limit after an irritating event occurs within which you will complain and whine all you want; says Robin Kowalsky, Ph.D “Vent, Scream, Yell and then you’re done”. 

3. Use other outlets  
   Keeping things inside of us when we’re unhappy about it isn’t really a good idea as this may tend to linger on for longer and then keep us weighed down, says Kowalsky. However there may be other outlets you can use to let these feelings out other than whining. For instance; I prefer to keep a journal about things like that; whenever I do, these problems tend to look smaller than I make them out to be

4. Find Solutions
   Yes, this is probably a much better idea. Instead of complaining, try to do something or think of a solution about that situation. Solving that problem would make you feel better about yourself and you would probably learn a thing or two while you’re at it.

So I would like to invite you to the Live Complaint free Challenge, even if it’s for one day.

If your life was a book, what would you title it?

I know that every day is not your best day, sometimes it even feels like the whole world is up against you but what matters most is how you end your journey of life.

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE READ; MUCH LOVE