By blaming everyone and everything for our setbacks, we end up with only one reason left — Ourselves.
More than likely, you are getting in your own way of your happiness and achievement.
I am the sum of my actions and inactions up until this point in time.
Sure, plans go pear-shaped, circumstances can hit us from all sides.
I could complain about so many things — the government, the market, my health, pain, no jobs, taxes, the weather, money (or lack thereof), my age, my problems, other peoples problems — but is that going to do me any good. (Negativity may feel better in the moment, but negativity bleeds into hopelessness quickly, like spilled ink on a page)
Take notice of those you come into contact with who complain often and compare it to how their life looks. Isn’t it interesting that the people who complain the most are the ones who do the least about it? They are standing in a life reflects their complaints. When you focus your energy on the negative things you can’t control, you default to a helpless state. They’ve complained themselves into a no-fly zone for their dreams.
Action Step:
List out your complaints — everything you say or tell yourself in your head.
Take a day on it. See if you can spot anything that sounds like a complaint.
Finished?
Now proceed to never say anything on that list again.
And if you do, go do twenty burpees. (Or something equivalently dreadful.)
Words have power — they draw the edges on what you think is possible in the world. When we complain we give those negative words and feels our power to change. It’s not what your complaining about that’s the issue. In fact, you are probably correct: times are tough, taxes are high, education sucks, the weather needs to stop being weird. It’s just that the act of complaining is as bad for us as the reason we want to complain, and doing so won’t fix our problems. Instead, complaining will just highlight our problems, even more, making it difficult to focus on possible solutions. The more we complain, the more reason we have to complain (to infinity).
There was a moment when fatigue weighed on me and my energy was so drained, all I wanted to do was talk/tell (cough* complain cough* cough) everyone around me. But then I read The Magic of Thinking Big and realized the power words can have over us. The more I complained about being tired, the more tired I became. The complaining didn’t cause the fatigue, but it sure made it a helluva lot heavy on my spirit. And that’s what complaining does: It puts a heavy chain around your neck.
Complaining will it make things worse because people don’t like to spend time with Debbie Downers, or Negative Nancy’s.
Birds of a feather flock together.
And Debbies of the weather complain together.
Focus your energy on what you can control about your circumstances going forward, and rise up to the new possibilities that come from being optimistic about life.
Stay BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner
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