How To Stop Complaining – The Secret Is SOOOO SIMPLE!
Want to know how to stop complaining? Well the great news is the SECRET IS SO SIMPLE. Here’s how to stop complaining with ease.
Let’s chat about how to stop complaining.
If you find you complain often, you are about to learn how to stop complaining.
Firstly I have to say that struggles and obstacles are to be expected in life.
They are a normal part of the human experience, however we get to choose how often we complain about them.
This is because we are sitting in the driver’s seat in life and we are in charge of where we go and how we choose to look at our circumstances in life.
Taking full responsibility for your life involves:
Knowing what you want and taking ownership of your thoughts, feelings, actions and results in life, even as you navigate all the inevitables highs and lows, ups and downs and so on. You need to start by taking ownership of how you spend your time, because how you spend your minutes and hours and days is how you spend your life.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
This brings me to today’s post which is all about HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING. That sounds like a pretty massive ask right – as you will no doubt face many circumstances this year that you will feel fully entitled to complain about.
People who have wronged you, things that you meticulously plan and yet still don’t go your way, all of the normal life stuff that pops up and can derail you from your purpose- not because the event actually has the power to derail you but because you will have thoughts about them that only serve to keep you stuck.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
When you get stuck in this mentality of thinking: that life is so unfair, someone shouldn’t have done that or said that, or that everything would be perfect if people just did exactly what I wanted them to do…That’s when we begin spinning in this cycle of complaining and helplessness.
It’s when you feel as if your life is happening to you rather than for you. It’s when you play the part of a victim rather than a hero. It’s when you begin to think: here we go again, another year singing the same old tune because I am still holding onto the same crappy thoughts about myself and my life that kept me stuck last year.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
So please indulge me for a moment while I share with you the story that only a week ago would have had me complaining to everyone about the gross negligence of someone I visited on New Year’s Eve.
I decided on New Year’s Eve to go and visit my usual beauty shop to get my eyebrows waxed. I know it sounds like such a silly and simple story to use as an example but stick with me here. So I visited this salon and usually when I visit there are two to three ladies that I’m familiar with and that do an amazing job on my eyebrows.
But on this day no one I recognised was working so I decided to just go with whichever lady was free to help me. As soon as I entered the room I told her that I can only use hot wax for my eyebrows as my skin is too sensitive and strip wax either burns me or rips off my skin.
I discovered this years ago the first time I went to get my eyebrows done and ever since then that’s the first thing I say every time I visit, even to the ladies who are familiar with me. So I shared this info with the new lady, she nodded and said sure, no problem.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
But then the moment she put the wax on my eyebrows I could tell something was wrong as it was burning more than usual and when she tore off the hair with a strip I was like: um what’s going on? I can’t use strip wax, only hot wax.
She said: no problem, this will be okay but you can probably tell how the story goes if I’m chatting about my goal of no complaining. Even after I told her I couldn’t use strip wax, she went and did it again on my second eyebrow and then something along the lines of: whoops I think I have burned you.
Seriously I felt like I was in a twilight zone, where something so weird was happening that it couldn’t possibly be true. I mean it wasn’t as if I didn’t tell her exactly what I wanted. I said the words and they were totally ignored so that by the time I walked out of the salon.
Sure my eyebrows were lovely but they were also red and felt raw and my first instance of having this compulsion to complain happened like two seconds later when I sent my daughter a message that the salon lady burned my eyes after I specifically told her I am not able to use strip wax. I want you to imagine those words all in caps lock too lol.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
This was a bit of a dilemma for me not just because my skin felt terrible but because only an hour earlier I had decided what I wanted my goals to be for 2023 and one of them was to not complain so much in 2023.
Now generally speaking I’m fully aware that complaining is a terrible use of my energy and I used to be great at taking whatever happened in my life and putting a more positive spin on it.
I would always ask myself what can I learn from this situation, even if it’s really crappy? But then in the later months of 2022 I started to notice this was not the first thought I would naturally reach for.
Sure it was something I would reach for later but only after I complained a little about it first. Complaining about something just a little bit started to become my default response and yes, even though it felt good letting my feelings out about a crappy situation after a while it felt not-so-great because as I have shared with you on this podcast before there’s a difference between complaining and venting.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
Complaining is that whinging, whiny thing we do that is all about woe-is-me, something terrible happened and it can never, ever, be considered to be not-terrible whereas venting is yes, still letting off steam, getting it out of us without resisting our emotions.
But once we have vented, we take a proactive approach to the situation and ask ourselves specific pertinent question and it’s these questions that put us take in the driver’s seat of our life and make us 100% aware that we are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
So back to my eyebrows on that day. Oh how I wanted to complain about the injustice of the salon lady totally ignoring my request. There was no way in my head that she hadn’t done something wrong.
The lady hadn’t listened to me, she burned my skin. But because I had made this vow to myself to complain less in the coming year and the morning of New Year’s Eve was the perfect time to begin practicing it, I had to stop myself immediately in the tracks.
Sure something crappy had happened but it is what it is.
No amount of complaining was going to help me go back in time and undo the situation. And complaining about it wasn’t actually going to make me feel better about it in the long run.
So I want to share with you my approach to this situation that can actually be applied to any situation which you might complain about often. I want you to pause and think about the situations you complain about the most.
For me the few things that were starting to be recurring situations I complained about in my life were when any family member left dirty dishes in the sink rather than washing them.
Also my older dog Scooter and the way he barks at dumb stuff in the mornings and the way he snores so loud at night I can’t sleep but I also can’t remove him from my room because he wants to be with me all the time. I would say those two situations – the dishes and the dog probably accounted for 90% of my complaining in 2022.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
But moving forward my goal for 2023 is to eradicate complaining from my life or at the very least shift it to venting, where sure it’s okay to let my feelings out but with the view to immediately coming back with a solution to this problem.
Now here’s the interesting thing about the waxing situation, when I made the conscious decision to not complain about it – the fire slowly started to burn out.
I discovered that complaining is almost like throwing gas or petrol on a little fire. It makes it grow so much bigger to the point where it often gets out of control. The first question I asked myself after I walked out of that salon and sent that text was this: WHAT CAN I LEARN FROM THIS SITUATION?
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
The answer to this question was: there are people in this world that actually still don’t listen when you give them very specific instructions. These people exist whether I like the fact or not.
I learned that I need to perhaps be even clearer in my instructions because maybe they weren’t clear enough and even then, someone might still choose not to listen.
The second question I asked myself is HOW CAN I OPT FOR GRATITUDE IN THIS MOMENT?
The answer to that question was: well I’m grateful that I can afford to even go to a salon to get my eyebrows done, I know years ago I would have considered a visit here to be an indulgence, I’m grateful that my skin has the ability to heal and repair itself, I’m grateful for a brain that can help me reframe any situation, I’m grateful for my ability to let go, I’m grateful for life and all of its lessons.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
Then there’s the third question I asked myself: HOW CAN I SHOW COMPASSION IN THIS MOMENT? Well I can choose to just forgive her, the lady made a mistake, I can choose to let it go. I know it may seem super simple but I want you to cast your mind to these three questions whenever you find yourself wanting to complain:
WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM THIS SITUATION?
HOW CAN I OPT FOR GRATITUDE IN THIS MOMENT? and
HOW CAN I SHOW COMPASSION IN THIS MOMENT?
If I was to apply these three questions to my dog Scooter who barks and snores loudly than he ever, I would force myself to come back with a game-plan to prevent his barking in the mornings…like maybe he needs to be kept in the room with me and given a little bone to chew on rather than allowing him the freedom to run to the front door and wake up everyone in the house.
I’m grateful to have a dog that loves me more than possibly anyone has ever loved me in my life and that is saying a lot there about Scooter’s devotion to me because I am already very loved by so many people. And how can I show compassion in the moment?
Scooter is nine years old now, he’s getting older and hard of hearing. Sometimes he will behave now in ways he didn’t before and in ways I might not love, like the snoring but that’s okay. That’s a small price to pay to have a dog I love in my life.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
In addition to these 3 questions, I also want to offer you my secret strategy for learning the art of venting rather than complaining. This seven step process works 100% of the time so I encourage you to give it a go. And it goes like this:
STEP 1: LIST YOUR DILEMMA IN 10 WORDS OR LESS
STEP 2: WHAT ARE THE MAIN FEELINGS THIS DILEMMA BRINGS UP IN YOU?
STEP 3: ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10 HOW EMOTIONAL DO YOU FEEL ABOUT IT?
STEP 4: NOW GO AHEAD AND VENT.
TAKE AS MUCH TIME AS YOU NEED TO GET IT ALL OUT…!
STEP 5: HOW COULD THIS SITUATION POSSIBLY BE A BLESSING IN
DISGUISE?
STEP 6: WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THIS PROBLEM?
WHAT WOULD YOUR FUTURE BEST SELF TELL YOU TO DO RIGHT NOW?
STEP 7: WHAT WILL YOU DO MOVING FORWARD?
- TAKE A DEEP BREATH NOW AND RELEASE
- KEEP TAKING DEEP BREATHS UNTIL YOU FEEL CALMER AND A SENSE OF INTERNAL PEACE
- HAS VENTING HERE MADE YOU FEEL A BIT BETTER OR WORSE?
- IF NOT KEEP RELEASING THE NEGATIVE ENERGY UNTIL YOU FEEL IT HAS LEFT YOUR BODY AND GO THROUGH THESE QUESTIONS AGAIN UNTIL YOU FEEL AT EASE.
Personally I will be reaching for both these strategies in 2023 to minimise the amount of complaining I do in my life but really it always, always, always comes back to how you manage your thoughts about any given situations because any negative feelings you experience in your life.
Like frustration, anger, annoyance, stress and so on, come not from the circumstance you are facing but from the thoughts you are thinking about that circumstance.
If you want to learn how to dramatically reduce your negative mind chatter and backtalk this year in 2023, I encourage you to go and purchase my MANAGING YOUR MIND MASTER COURSE today.
Seriously it will change your life immediately once you implement the lessons you learn there because every result you create in your life comes from the thoughts you are thinking so to change your life, you need to start by changing your thoughts.
HOW TO STOP COMPLAINING
Did you know that complaining is a choice? That there are people out there in the world that just choose to never complain. Like my son Jake is one of those people. You would think that given his disability, given that he is in a wheelchair for life that he would have something to complain about but he never, ever does.
Honestly, he is the most laidback, easygoing teen ever and that is partly due to the thoughts he thinks every day. He thinks easy-going, non-complaining thoughts inside his head.
INSPIRING MOM LIFE PODCAST
So if you’re hoping to create change and new results in 2023, make sure to visit me every week on the Inspiring Mom Life podcast.
As always you know I love and appreciate you all and please know it isn’t enough to just dream about things. You need to go out there and take action, experiment and make things happen.
Remember every word, every action you take today is part of the story you’re writing, the story of your life and if you get to hold the pen that writes this story GO AHEAD AND MAKE IT A GREAT ONE!
Until next time, much love and as always dream big my friend.
Much love, Frances Vidakovic xxx
-
Before You Go…
– See my EVERYTHING PAGE and grab a free gift > HERE
– Get instant access to EVERY COURSE I’ve ever created > HERE
– Listen to my INSPIRING LIFE PODCAST on Spotify or via Apple Podcasts.
– Or for biz owners, listen to LIFE COACH FOR BIZ MOMS Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
I’m Frances Vidakovic – a mindset & action coach for quietly ambitious women who want to stop overthinking and finally take aligned action. I help women achieve their goals and follow through on what matters, without sacrificing their sanity or soul.