Hello, everyone!
If you read last week’s blog post, you’ll recall I mentioned five reasons why we all need to stop complaining so much.
Me included*
If you didn’t read last week’s post, I recommend clicking here and reading it.
In case you don’t have time right now, here’s the tl;dr version:
Complaining is addictive, contagious, bad for your health, a waste of your time, and after a while, it can make people stop wanting to hang out with you.
*Despite being a generally happy and optimistic person, I still struggle with this as well, so as you read this, please bear in mind that I’m not trying to shame anyone for negative thinking, but to help us all become happier, more well-adjusted people that other people want to be around.
What do you see?
A quick digression into an illustrative story from the past:
Back when I was in college, my mom and I took a road trip through northern Wisconsin in search of waterfalls. Not more than a day into the trip, I grew frustrated by her negativity, and I finally told her that I couldn’t take it.
“Mom, next time you decide to speak, I need you to think about what you’re going to say…and if it’s negative, either don’t say it, or rephrase it in a positive way.”
We drove in silence for a while, and she opened her mouth, and then closed it. And again.
Then she opened her mouth, started to say a word or two, stopped herself, and then started chanting in gibberish.
“Mom, were you about to say something negative?”
“No, Billie, I’m just worshipping trees.”
This happened a few times. But it worked! The negativity decreased 100%.
Then at some point, we got lost, got in a fight, and stopped speaking for a while.
A bit later, back on the scenic highway which wound like a snake through a state forest, trees just beginning to turn fall colors, and heading toward the bright sunset, I couldn’t help myself, and finally broke the silence.
“This road is SO PRETTY.”
My mom snapped back without hesitation—“Yeah, pretty curvy!”
We looked at each other, and broke out laughing hysterically.
After we recovered, she said to me, “Billie, there just isn’t a pill for optimism.”
Mom was right—
There isn’t a pill for optimism. It takes a lot of hard work to rewire your brain.
But it CAN be done!
We’ve learned a lot about neuroplasticity in the past few decades. We used to believe that certain traits were fixed—that some people were just born with more confidence, intelligence, willpower, or positivity. Now we know that these traits are not fixed, but can be learned.
Negative thought patterns are just one more bad habit that’s hard (but not impossible) to break.
Your negative thoughts are not “you”…they are a habit
Here are 6 strategies for breaking the complaining habit and creating more positive thought patterns:
Notice it
The first step to making any change in habits is becoming aware.
If you want to lose weight, you become aware of what you are eating and how much exercise you are getting, as well as smaller things like whether or not you take the stairs.
To change your habitual thoughts, take account of what you notice.
How many of your thoughts about things are negative? How much of what you say each day is a complaint?
Every time our synapses fire together, they wire together. So any time you have a negative thought, your brain pulls those synapses tighter together so that it’s easier for them to repeat the action in the future.
Any time we experience an emotional reaction to something in our life, we have a choice to make, whether we allow the negative thought pattern to win. We’ll get to this more in #6.
Understand why you feel the need to complain
When I first started in voiceover, I felt powerless to progress in my given circumstances. I knew that a home studio was becoming a requirement, and I was working in the space the size of a large packing box at the back of my closet.
THAT wasn’t the problem…I actually had pretty great sound in my little cubbyhole!
But the noises outside were a constant source of stress. Even just trying to record short auditions was a struggle with planes flying over three or four per minute.
Add in my door-opening cat, a woodpecker that wouldn’t leave my rotting windowsill alone, my roommates clomping around on hardwood floors (I THOUGHT THEY HAD DAY JOBS!), the neighbor’s yappy dog/power tools/lawnmower/snowblower/etc, and I was sometimes literally screaming and flipping off the sky. My friends had to hear me complain about my situation for months.
Did all that complaining solve anything? Nope. I just wound up really frustrated.
If you have a complaint, do a little digging around in your own brain. Ask yourself:
What am I feeling? Frustration, anger, powerlessness, humiliation?
Is this a valid complaint, or am I blowing things out of proportion?
What can I do to change this situation or solve this problem?
Is there someone else who might have the solution?
Is this a one-time complaint, or an ongoing issue?
You have three options: 1. Do nothing and keep complaining, 2. Change the situation, or 3. Change your attitude.
In my case, I had friends who were able to help me find some interim solutions (recording between midnight and 3am, getting a shotgun mic, moving my studio to my best friend’s basement) until I could afford a better solution.
Were these solutions great? No. They all had their downsides.
But being open-minded and accepting the limitations of our current circumstances with a spirit of creativity and adaptability is a lot better than choosing to just be pissed off about them and do nothing.
Address the feelings in a healthy way
Ever find yourself ranting about the client who always wants things at the last minute and comes back with endless revisions? Have you considered that it is your own lack of clarity that is allowing them to put you in this position?
Brene Brown said “Clear is kind. Unclearness is unkind.”
(More about this in her great post here)
In our culture, we have a tendency to either confront in an overly-aggressive manner or to avoid having difficult discussions altogether and allow our relationships to deteriorate into passive-aggressive behavior.
Neither of these is especially healthy.
When our complaints are about someone else’s behavior, we often allow that one complaint to take us down a path of schadenfreude that feels good in the moment, but solves nothing.
Instead, wait until you are calm and address the situation directly. Speak to the person you have the problem with. No one is a mind reader, and our expectations will probably not be met by those who aren’t aware of them.
Being direct can be uncomfortable, but it usually leads to quicker solutions and better relationships.
Realize that your complaints hurt you most of all
Maybe you’ve heard the saying “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill someone else.”
Complaints are the same. Whatever it was that happened, even if it was something you have every right to be upset about, by holding onto it, and telling the story of how you were wronged to anyone who will listen, you strengthen those negative synapses and re-traumatize yourself by reliving the circumstances.
The scammer that stole your credit card, or the asshole who almost ran you off the road a week ago? They’re not even thinking about it.
The anger and resentment that you hold onto is only hurting you.
That stress is shortening your life, not theirs.
Don’t give them that power over you.
Breathe. Learn to let go.
Move on.
Avoid other complainers!
Negative attitudes are contagious.
Our mirror neurons LOVE to try on the emotions of those around us without asking our permission, so be careful who you spend time with.
I’m not saying to ditch your best friends. If your friends or family have legitimate struggles, of course you should be there for them!
However, if a friend has developed a bad habit of complaining about everything from not finding the perfect parking spot, to the weather, to the concert you invited them to, it might be time to limit your exposure.
Put the problem in perspective and be grateful
When you experience negative events, ask yourself: how bad is this?
While a flat tire might be inconvenient, or a cancelled voiceover job might suck, if no one is in imminent danger of death as a result of the current situation, you might want to think critically about your reaction to it.
Thanks to a natural bias toward negativity, our brains tend to focus more on negative events and comments, and linger on them over time. While this might have been helpful for our ancestors who needed to remember that Uncle Ugg died after eating that purple berry and that the last time you went near that cave by the river, you were chased by a sabre toothed tiger, it’s less important now when the stakes aren’t life or death.
Does that mean we should just accept that our brains are Debby Downers?
We can consciously choose to counteract our brain’s natural tendency toward negativity through reframing, redirecting, and gratitude.
Reframing is looking for the silver lining in every dark cloud.
When the pandemic first shut everything down, it was easy to let my negative emotions take over.
What will I do without my day job? Will I even qualify for unemployment? When will lockdown be over? Is it safe to go to the grocery store? Will we run out of basic things?
I countered this in two ways:
by thinking about all of the worse things humans have experienced, and
by thinking about all of the positives I could find in the situation
Despite the seriousness of a worldwide pandemic, the situation also held a lot of positives for me: more time to work on voiceover, more time with my cat, a greater sense of closeness with my friends back home in Minnesota, time to swim, practice Italian, learn the ukulele, and just generally be creative in a way that I don’t often allow myself as an “adult with responsibilities.”
Redirecting is finding something else to focus on when your brain starts down the negative path. Watch a happy movie. Listen to your favorite music. Play a game with your child. Do whatever it is that makes you happy and releases endorphins.
For me, I used to fall down a bad negative spiral after a bad theater audition, and I’m not sure that the happy diversion would have been enough to counteract the whirlpool of negativity that overwhlemed me. What worked for me was giving my lizard brain a task (memorizing monologues on the way home) that would occupy it and keep it busy, as well as make me feel empowered to experience better auditions in the future.
Creating a gratitude practice might sound woo-woo, but science has shown that those who make a conscious effort to regularly focus on what they are grateful for are happier, and that the effects seem to last over time.
While we were in lockdown, it helped to remind myself that I had a lot to be grateful for: a comfortable place to live, enough food, access to entertainment and outdoor spaces, my cat, my boyfriend and my roommates, and so much else.
Want to try it? End each day by writing a list of ten things in your day you are grateful for, and do your best to make them different things, things that you might normally take for granted. Do this every day for a month, and then reflect on your happiness level.
Once you start noticing all of the little positives around you, it’s a lot harder to take them for granted.
Hope this helps, friends!
Writing this has inspired me to start keeping a gratitude practice again. Join me?
Until next week, be well!