I’ve started a 30 day challenge. For 30 days I will not complain out loud. What is a complaint? For the purposes of this excercise a complaint is commenting on the current situation with emotion, in a way that makes it seem undesireable. For instance, “Oh God! I hate washing dishes,” is a complaint.What do you do instead? I’m a very vocal person. Being vocal is a stress reliever so I figure that I should continue to be vocal but instead of complaining, I will state the situation and say what’s good about it. For example, “I’m doing the dishes. Good thing I have a dishwasher so I won’t have to wash them all by hand.” If I do catch myself complaining out loud, I will drink a glass of water. The reasoning behind that is that even though I did something that wasn’t beneficial (complain), by drinking the water I’m doing something good for me. So basically the water is an act that serves as a way of getting back on track towards my goal of improving myself.I started yesterday and it went pretty well. I don’t think I complained out loud more than twice- although there were a few moments of internal dialogue. When I caught myself doing the internal complaining, I would drink some water (not a whole glass though).I’m excited. In the past I did a 30 day challenge to wake up at 5:00am on weekdays and 7:00am on weekends. This act changed my life. Once I started getting up that early, I started going to the gym in the mornings and found that excercise in the morning makes me feel a lot more positive and energized during the day. Getting up early is now a part of my life. Those who know me know this is HUGE. People would never call me before 10:00am in the past because they knew I’d be sleeping. Now imagine if I get into the habit of not complaining. What wonderful things could start to happen? I know that one benefit would be that at least my kids won’t hear my dialogue about how much I dislike the daily tasks of my life. Another of course is that I’ll be saying something positive instead of complaining. It will be an excercise in Creative Observation, which will only enable me to consciously create my reality more effectively.

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