Do you wish you could stop complaining so much? Are you always getting frustrated about the same things? Are you worried your friends and family are tired of hearing the same story about how you aren’t recognized at work or how annoying your flaky friend is?
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I’m honored to share my advice in Fatherly for alternative ways to deal with your emotions when you feel like complaining. I cover everything from why it’s important to write your complaints down to changing your environment to considering when it might be time to refresh your friend list.
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Ask yourself: How do you typically stop yourself from getting sucked into the complaining vortex?
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Write Your Complaints Down
A habitual complainer generally has a tendency to air their grievances to anyone in earshot. So, the next time something really wears at you, don’t say anything. Instead, write it down in a journal. This allows you to get out your gripe without implicating yourself or annoying others. “Journaling can be a great way to collect your thoughts and begin to work through them on your own,” says life coach Elizabeth Su. “If free-writing is too overwhelming, try using a prompt like: ‘What’s actually going on here?’, ‘How does this make me feel?’ or ‘Given this, how do I want to move forward?’”
Change Locations
When possible, actually removing yourself from a situation can be the best way to break the cycle of complaining. Immediate physical activity is best. But even if you can’t do that in the moment, experts agree that even something as simple as a daily walk can help drain the negativity from your mind and give you a new perspective. “Research shows that walking can be a great form of stress reduction,” says Su. “So whether you schedule in a daily 30-minute walk over lunch or just a brief five-minute walk when a particular issue arises, you will undoubtedly benefit from a breath of fresh air.”
Refresh Your Friend List
The old saying that misery loves company is very true, and if you surround yourself with people who share your penchant for whining, you’ll feed off of each other. The result will be a spiral of complaining that could prove impossible to break out of. “If you catch yourself in a worse mood or complaining more after you hang out with a particular friend or colleague,” says Su, “you may want to re-evaluate how much time you spend with this person.”
Click here to access the full Fatherly article: How to Stop Complaining So Much
Photo by Lena Bell on Unsplash
