- Geekmaster
- 2020-09-26 09:47:19
- 13 minute(s)
How To Stop Complaining And Being Negative
We all complain. Even if you argue that you are the happiest person in the world, you still complain sometimes. But how to stop complaining and being negative?
Sadly, it’s easier to complain instead of fixing a problem.
But when you try to see things from a different perspective and challenge yourself to stop complaining, it is possible!
Life is stressful, and complaining may be considered by many as an extension of being absolutely normal.
WarningHowever, complaining affects our brains and our physical health negatively. A sense of sadness or melancholy is increased, along with real dissatisfaction with our daily lives.
Complaining can be a marker of many different things.
But it’s still a bad habit that needs to be avoided. And, with some self-awareness and diligence, you can cut greatly cut down on the complaints.
Constantly vocalizing your negative thoughts and feelings just isn’t acceptable for a number of reasons.
ImportantSo, you have to find a way to put your complaints into perspective; manage them. Recognize what you’re feeling, but deal with it in a way that’s productive, not destructive.
Complaining literally drains brainpower. Establishing “complaint-free zones” where negativity isn’t allowed is no longer an option.
It just takes a little practice and effort to break old habits. Here are seven tips to stop complaining and ditch the negative thoughts so you can focus on finding solutions and living a better life.
Shift Your Mindset
Our brains tend to gravitate toward the negative. We are bothered first by the thorns in the rose bush instead of being marveled by the sight of the beautiful roses.
This requires a new practice of being mindful.
ImportantWhen you find yourself thinking or saying a negative comment about something or someone, stop and force yourself to say something positive instead. Enlist the help of a cheerful friend to stop you when you complain and help you to see the positive in the situation.
Change the way you think. Cultivate a positive spin on how you perceive the problem.
Accept that life is just plain messy. Accept the situation for what it is and move forward. Keep the pro side heavily weighed against the negatives. When you inevitably experience setbacks, move forward and remember that everyone has them.
Expect greatness from yourself. People are not perfect, and they will let you down. However, you can be the hero of your own story by embracing personal responsibility and eliminating your expectations of others.
Breaking the habit starts with awareness. You have to recognize your complaining before you can change it.
ImportantWhen you catch yourself complaining, push pause on your mouth and redirect the conversation with something like, “You know what? I’m just complaining. Let’s talk about something else.”
Changing your ways and adopting a new mindset won’t happen overnight, but it’s definitely worth the effort.
WarningConstant complaining can become a cycle that’s hard to stop. People will begin to form an impression of you based on your moaning and groaning. Unfortunately, that impression is usually a negative one.
Judgment Is Torment
We often complain about others because we think they are not up to our standards. Once you stop judging people without knowing their stories, you will most likely complain less about the things people do.
Everyone makes mistakes and being critical leads to complaining. This includes yourself.
ImportantIt is simply impossible to be in control of every situation, sometimes it is best to lower the stress and simply roll with the consequences. List your strengths to build confidence and, on a better day, list your weaknesses and how to downplay them.
Become less judgemental, a little more confrontational.
Compliment yourself and others. Acknowledge a job well done, or a nicely fitting suit or dress. Also, when you’re really bothered by injustice, speak up and say something because it’s not complaining, it’s sharing your feelings constructively.
Stop taking everything personally. What people say often reveals more about them than it does about you. You grow when you’re not defensive. I try and do something every day where I could get rejected to remind myself that my value doesn’t come from other people’s opinions of me. It doesn’t matter what people think of me when I like myself.
Being negative and judgemental stings.
WarningIt ruins your mood, it makes you miserable, and it keeps you in a grey world where most things suck. More importantly, you’ve probably burst a few happy bubbles of people around you. Sometimes it’s a passing comment you made that you forgot five seconds later but others will remember it for a long time because it hurt them.
Avoid passing judgment and instead build a bridge between two human beings.
Instead of judging someone for what he’s done or how he looks, try instead to understand the person. Put yourself in their shoes. Try to imagine their background. Find out their backstory.
Take Action
Once you have identified the motivation behind your complaints, address them. Changing a complaining habit isn’t simply positive thinking or being a pushover.
The only sure thing about life is that nothing stays the same.
ImportantChange is coming whether it’s tomorrow, next month, or next year. Determine the outcome you wish or how to improve the situation, then work with the people who can do something about it.
Acceptance of a situation helps you to adapt positively to life’s changes.
WarningTake up the challenge of seeing the positive in a situation, even if it is a small good. Think of the experience as an opportunity rather than an untenable obstacle.
Ask yourself: What can I do to improve this situation? Maybe the answer is absolutely nothing except to focus on your reaction. Analyzing a situation can help you understand what’s in your control, what’s not, and what kinds of constructive actions you can take. A few deep breaths after a stressful situation can give you the emotional distance you need to come up with a better plan than venting.
You be the judge. Figure out what needs to be done.
If the complaint is one you simply can’t accept, you have to evaluate your power in the situation. Can you directly change it yourself? What needs to be done to make this situation more manageable?
The world is objective, large, complex, and layered. The issues of the planet are outside of your immediate domain.
ImportantSolve problems where you can. Always zero in on matters under your direct control and influence. The more energy you put into what you can control, the less you’ll have to grumble about.
Seek a Silver Lining
Every situation has its downsides. There’s no such thing as perfection. But, more than likely, you can also find a lot of positives in your situation — if you look for it.
The good stuff could be buried pretty deep beneath everything else, so you might have to put in some real effort here.
ImportantYou can be authentic and even acknowledge your negative feelings like fear, frustration, or confusion. But you don’t have to let those things dominate your thinking or your conversations. Instead, try to focus on next steps.
Overgeneralizing, catastrophizing, or assuming you know what others are thinking can cause us to spiral-and then complain.
Instead, seek out actual evidence to support a more balanced perspective. Looking for proof (or a lack of it) can put the world in perspective — and take you out of your own head.
When you have a complaint, it is a good idea to deliver it by starting and ending with a positive. Otherwise, people may be closed off to it and completely miss your message. It is suggested to avoid the word “but”, as it could wipe away the positive.
Look for the little things. Do you ever sit down and count your blessings?
WarningI’ll be the first to admit that it’s so easy to complain and focus on the negative in your life, eager to eradicate it. But how often do you truly sit down and think about all of the things you are truly thankful for?
You’ve to become a seeker of silver linings.
Even when it pours, there is a rainbow after the rain. It seems that too often, we focus on the dark parts and forget to look for the silver linings hidden in the storm of it all.
Look Deeper Inside
In order for you to successfully work habitual complaining out of your daily routine, it’s necessary to understand what it is that’s driving you to do it in the first place. I suggest choosing one topic that particularly gets under your skin and then condensing all of the complaints into a core complaint.
Before you launch into a complaint, you will describe to yourself what you’re thinking or feeling.
ImportantOnce you notice when and how often you’re complaining, create some space so you can analyze the triggers and what you’re feeling. As you notice what you’re feeling, hone in on the emotion so you can tell what’s really upsetting you.
Look deeper. Take the time to evaluate your complaint seriously.
You could spend about five minutes to really look at your complaints and write them down. This way, you may find out what it is that really pushes your buttons.
There will be times when you are upset at something that has happened, but the real problem lies somewhere else. At those times, engage with a friend to help you figure out what is really going on.
Inside every complaint is a request or a want.
WarningPut your finger on the real want of the situation. Instead of taking the shortcut (complaining), put yourself in the driver’s seat and pinpoint your actual want.
Be very clear about what you do want, not what you don’t want.
Observe your complaint and the positive intention behind it and ask yourself, “What do I really want?” Only by accepting full responsibility for the decisions and actions you made that led you to this situation will you open the doors to further possibilities.
Practice Gratitude
It’s important to remind yourself each day about one thing you’re grateful for, no matter how small. Just jot down three to five things you’re grateful for every day.
Gratitude is a powerful antidote to complaining.
ImportantCounting your blessings should be one of your favorite ways to get out of a bad mood or switch your focus away from the annoying things in life. And it’s hard to complain when you’re thinking about how lucky you are.
Gratitude helps you quiet down and focus on what’s important.
Things may be bad, but you need to be realistic about how bad they are as well as your emotional response to difficulties. When you focus on what is right in your life, it takes the spotlight off the negative and creates a sense of enrichment.
When you are practicing the attitude of gratitude, you are quite literally attracting more abundance to yourself. The sky might be falling on your head, you might be diseased but by practicing gratitude instead of complaining you are saying that regardless of the circumstances; you are grateful for everything that you have.
Express gratitude for the challenges, the obstacles and the failures in your life. Know that you learned from those things.
ImportantIt’s important to be thankful for the unexpected things in life because that is what shapes us into who we are, almost like blessings in disguise. So challenge yourself to change your attitude and remember to be thankful for all that you have.
There is always something to be grateful about.
You can choose to be grateful for all the big and little things in life, each and every moment. The more you choose to notice what is good and beautiful, the happier and more peaceful you will feel.
Take Care of Yourself
Complaining comes from a lack of control as well as a frustration with the world. However, if you take care of your physical and mental health, you’ll feel empowered.
Your attitude will improve, and it’ll become harder to moan.
ImportantThe healthier you are and the cleaner your environment, the better you’ll feel. At the very least, you can reflect on these things when you feel the urge to complain.
Meditation can have an impact on many areas of life, and complaining is no exception.
Research suggests that continued practice of meditation can help you regulate your emotions. As a consequence, you become more aware of what you say, and how people respond.
If you are able to make yourself aware of some of your major triggers, you can prepare yourself with positive affirmations or even role play different ways to respond to the triggers. In order for a trigger to work it depends on a knee jerk reaction from you; learn to take away that power by relaxing or otherwise preparing yourself.
You cannot change the people around you, but you can change the people that you choose to be around.
WarningPut yourself in a room full of complainers and people who judge, criticize, and focus on the bad, and you will feel the effects of that negative energy. So do yourself a favor and get the heck away from people and environments like that as soon as possible and create a life that is inspiring and fulfilling!
Embrace the opportunity and power to make changes in your day to day life.
ImportantOpen yourself up to try new things even if you are not sure if they will be successful. Strive to enjoy the experience instead of driving only for success.
Final Thoughts
As you follow these tips and lessen the habit of complaining, you will find yourself leading a more confident lifestyle. Move forward with self-assurance and confidence. Above everything else, be gentle with yourself.
Stop complaining about things beyond your control.
Others will notice and comment if you make significant changes in reducing complaining and maximizing the positive. Ultimately, your life is what you make it and these strategies can help you make it more serene.
Chronic work complaints are (obviously) a sign that you aren’t happy.
ImportantI don’t want you to ignore your feelings. I want you to investigate them and take intelligent action to resolve the situation one way or another.
Simply ask yourself: Would you rather complain or be happy? Choose happiness, focusing on the positive, and being kind always!
It is your choice and no one else’s. What is your foolproof way to stop complaining and being negative? If you enjoyed the article or have any comments, recommendations, or tips for improvement please do comment below.
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