ComplainLess
Posted in Advice, Love Your People | 5 Comments
complainless: (adj.) 1. to be free of complaints 2. a pleasure to be around
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
Irish playwright and critic
Your words move others. Your words move you.
Let yours send everyone in the right direction.
To be ComplainLess…
- Be aware. Recognize your typical paths to complaining – what (who) sparks your tendency to gripe. Minimize your exposure to them (eliminating those ‘sparks’ altogether may not always be realistic or the best thing). Know that your grumbling is a complete waste of energy.
- Be thankful. Regularly reflect on all the good in your life (people, opportunities, things). Understand and enjoy how lucky you really are. Be entitled to nothing.
- Pause before you begin. Clip a complaint as you feel it coming. Put a smile or thoughtful statement in its path. Blame no one. Blame nothing.
- Be accountable. Focus on solving problems rather than having them (especially with customers). Set the example for others and recommit when you slip. Care for yourself and create a positive habit.
Simple. More enjoyable for everyone. Let’s Smove.
"If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you by all angels to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning… Love the day."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
American writer and activist
Need a ComplainLess™ reminder wristband?
__________
Connect with Sam (guy behind this stuff)…
Facebook | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
Copyright © 2010 by Give More Media Inc. This was written by Sam Parker. If you’d like to tell people about it somewhere (e.g., blog, newsletter, Facebook, social media), please reference Sam Parker of GiveMore.com as the author and link directly to the article. Excerpts are great but please don’t publish the article in its entirety without advanced written permission (email Sam using the address at the bottom of this page).
LOVE THIS POST?
Join more than 20,000 subscribers (for free) and get this stuff by email. (You'll love it.)
An old friend of mine…a LLOONNGG time ago…taught me, at a very young age, the meaning of gratitude: “If I wake up in the morning, and there’s no chalk outline around my body, it’s a GREAT day!” And another person put it into perspective like this, with an audience of 2000 in attendance:
1) Take a slip of paper and write down your 3 biggest problems.
2) Put all of the slips into a big barrel and stir up the slips.
3) Pull out a slip and read it (it cannot be yours).
You do that and you’ll find out 2 VERY important things:
1) You’re not the only one with problems, and
2) You’ll wish you had your slip back!
No matter how bad it gets, someone somewhere has got a steeper and longer hill to climb.
Take the time to laugh, love and be grateful EVERY day. YOU and the people you come in contact with every day will be the one’s that’ll benefit.
Thanks, Beth, margaRET, and Jack.
‘Bright-siders’… I like that. The goal of being ComplainLess is to better allocate our energy toward contribution and service (helping people with whatever it is we do). Complaining is different than identifying a problem and offering a solution.
Great thoughts and totally in synch with 2 books I’m reading: 1) by John C. Maxwell titled “Everyone communicates few connect” and 2) by Tom Peters who reinvents his philosophy on excellence as “The Big Little Things.” We are what we say, we are what we do. Kvetching gets us no where but ignored, misunderstood, and not heard. Keep it up.
http://www:communicationgardener.com
What is the goal of “complaining less”? Is focusing on solutions necessarily mutually exclusive to complaining?
A complaint coupled with a solution is still seen by bright-siders as a complaint, and thus “bad” or something to be avoided.
Ask the workers for BP about “being accountable”… they were seen by their superiors as merely “complainers.” Hmm. Depends on whose complaining doesn’t it?
really realistic. it actually lessens chances of aggrevating stress levels