Hey. You had a bad day, didn’t you? The social distancing protocols, the feeling of loneliness as you can’t see and interact with your friends physically. Added to that, the stress from work as remote working hasn’t turned out to be as fun as you thought it would be. You are working more now. It’s all just too much. You want to let it all out. It isn’t good to keep it in. You want to let it all out and complain. That’s normal, isn’t it? Everyone does it, so you can’t be expected to “stop complaining”?
It is normal to complain. After all, our brains have a bias for negative thoughts. It is easier for the brain to focus on the wrong things, and it takes effort for the brain to notice the good. Only that, complaining isn’t good for you. It negatively impacts your brain, mental and physical health. It increases your chances of getting health issues associated with negative stress. So you need to learn how to stop complaining.
Complaining increases that feeling of being wrung out that you are feeling. It also increases your sense of dissatisfaction with pretty much everything. Those short bursts of relief you feel when you let it all out are temporary. It doesn’t help. That quick relief comes with an increased negative outlook on life. Do you think you are lonely now? That would be the beginning. As Psychologist Scott Bea rightly asserted, ‘none of us likes to hang out with a complainer.’ Chronic complainers are viewed like diseases that everyone wants to avoid catching.
You don’t want to build a profile as a complainer, so as hard as it might seem, you need to deal with the complaining problem. You need to learn how to stop complaining! Sure, it feels good to be listened to, but the person you are complaining to might not be there all the time. You need to help yourself sometimes, and you will soon see how you can do it.
How To Stop Complaining: 6 Easy Tips
1. Build A Positive Attitude
As stated above, your brain wants to think of evil thoughts. Don’t let it. You have to change how you think, but this is not as easy as it sounds. It requires an intentional mindset to achieve, and we believe you can do it. Don’t fall into the routine complaints about your looks, clothes, work, etc. Just accept you can’t have it all and that the perfect ideal life doesn’t exist.
Accept that life is chaotic and little you can do to control things. You have to look and move ahead no matter the situation. Remember, complaining would only make you stand still and not make any progress. When disappointments, take a step back and analyze the situation rationally. You would realize that what you are stressing about won’t matter in a few years. So, when life throws lemons at you, stop complaining and instead make the best refreshing lemonade ever.
2. Learn To Adapt
Adapting is an essential ability to develop in the battle against complaining. Your ability to adapt is crucial to accepting situations you can’t control. As we said earlier, life is chaotic, and when a fresh batch of chaos happens, you have to find ways that can make you be on top of the situation. Accept that the change in condition has come. Seek solutions with a positive attitude. Think of the setback as an event that will set you forward. Instead of complaining about a setback, be grateful that the situation is not worse than it could have been. Please focus on the positive things that have happened to you in your life. Be thankful for them for those things. It would help give you a better and positive look at life.
3. Don’t Look Back
It is easy to look back at situations that have passed and stress ourselves on the many ways it could have been better. This hindsight can be good if you want to use the past as a reference point to learn from to be better equipped in the future. However, if the purpose of your hindsight is to worry and stress about past events, then it is unnecessary and pointless. There is nothing you can change about the past. You can’t afford to be worrying and complaining about the future too. It isn’t here yet, and you don’t even know what it holds. As we have mentioned above, life is chaos. It is unpredictable. You can’t control events. Live in the present and watch how events unfold.
4. Be Wary of Exploiters
Exploiters can make things worse for you and harm your self-help journey of not complaining. When some people see that you aren’t complaining and are more adaptable, some would be looking to exploit this character to their benefit. If it is in the workplace, you might see them trying to push more work to you. Please don’t allow them. Trying to give up the habit of chronic complaining doesn’t mean you should be someone’s footstool. You have to resist these exploiters as enabling them to have their way could overwhelm your budding dominance against complaining and giving you more things to complain about.
Let your assertiveness ooze from your body that exploiters wouldn’t even think of using you. Stand up straighter, have a firmer handshake, always maintain eye contact, speak louder and more explicit and be more coherent when you are talking.
5. Take it Easy on Yourself
Accept your mistakes and know that you would still make more in the future. Not accepting when you have made errors and being too hard on yourself won’t erase your mistake. So, don’t beat yourself up, and don’t be too judgmental of yourself. Work and other events are intent on piling stress on you. Please don’t add more to it. Also, congratulate yourself when you do a fantastic job and develop the habit of complimenting yourself.
When you accept that you have made a mistake, don’t extend this to an error that other people have made. Some people would want to exploit how responsible you are by putting their mistake as yours. Remember, be assertive and have respect for yourself. Replace people who try to use you with people who respect you. Don’t let anyone take advantage of you.
6. Express Genuine Complaints
The above tips do not mean you should shut yourself away from help. These tips are to prevent you from becoming a chronic complainer. Remember, don’t keep them to yourself when you have valid complaints. Share them, and from sharing, a solution can be gotten. For instance, if you went to a hotel and the AC is terrible. You can complain and have the situation fixed. Accepting it would put you in discomfort. So, it would be best if you voice out. When you have valid complaints, let them out, and you might have the complaints attended to.
Final Words
There would always be a reason to complain. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk if the complaint is genuine and not something you can solve yourself. Remember, you can do control events. You have to adapt to setbacks and move on.
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