I am so sick of this weather… said everybody…

I am so sick of this weather… said everybody…?

I have been thinking about complaints over the past few weeks.

I noticed a pattern of complaints coming from yours truly, and I decided that enough was enough. It was time to try and see about making a change.

There has been an awful lot of crappy weather everywhere but I decided that it might be time to stop complaining about that for starters. ?

I recalled a 21-day non-complaint challenge that I had read about, and dug down a bit further on this. The person behind this is Will Bowden, and you can check out his website here.

Will makes his case for a Complaint Free World in this TedX talk (quite poorly recorded).

Will compares complaining to a disease – and he did not mean this figuratively. He claims that complaining can contribute to a range of health issues. He argues that complaining is actually physically detrimental. I think that it is fair to say we are all very aware of this relationship between mind and body, and I have written on this topic a number of times. Complaining produces a response in us that has not only physically detrimental, but also affects us psychologically and socially.

A complaint spreads from one person to the next and before you know it, like a strong viral strain, everyone has caught it. I was initially most interested in the impact my complaining might have on my kids, but it wasn’t long before I got thinking of how complaining spreads in families, offices, and amongst friends. I considered what a complaining person in a leadership role would do to a team or organisation.

Will Bowden has a really nice 21-day challenge – surmising that a complaining habit can be broken in 21 days. Have a look for yourself and see if this is something that fits with you. In case you don’t have the time to dig deeper, here is the short version. Put a bracelet on your wrist (or a small stone in your pocket). Each time you catch yourself complaining, swap the wrist the bracelet is on (or the pocket the stone is in).

By becoming conscious of your complaining you have a good chance of stopping complaining if that is what you want to do.?

I for one am making a conscious effort, I will let you know how I get on.

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My effort to curb complaints has been nicely timed with a reading on Stoicism again.

It seems that a bit of discomfort is good for us, and knowing this might strengthen our resolve not to complain.

The Stoics thought that if your life was too easy, it was only a matter of time before ‘the Gods’ would open up a can of whup-ass and make a challenge crop up to test you. If you had not been hardening your mind and body over the easy times, then you were surely due for suffering when difficult times come. If you hadn’t been tested for a while you had better look out was the general attitude.

Extrapolating this idea to our visions and goals for our life, we know that at times there are going to be setbacks. It’s not going to all be plain sailing. I think that visualisation of the challenges that are likely to arise in pursuit of goals is likely to prepare us for them and might just prevent a bit of complaining when they do arise too. This is also something that I am keeping in mind at the moment.

Here is the idea cynically portrayed in pop culture – as I was writing this, I was reminded of this scene in the Matrix – where the first version of the Matrix was rejected by humans who ‘define their reality by misery and suffering’

?For the record, I don’t think that this is the case!

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Have a great couple of weeks, and thanks for reading. As always, I appreciate your feedback.

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