80. How to Break the Complaining Habit in 4 Simple Steps

Small Talk And Hidden Complaints

Cheryl Fischer 0:00

So what do you talk about when you chit-chat with colleagues at work or with neighbors in the neighborhood? Do you talk about the weather? Do you talk about the traffic? What do you say about the weather and the traffic? Is it oh I can't believe spring? We have no spring here. We've gone from cold to hot, which I say is the case where I am. Is it, oh, the traffic was so bad? Is it always sharing complaints? Not even necessarily realizing it, just doing it as a habit. Listen to yourself. It could be that. And it does matter. So let's talk about it. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast. Now, anything you do occasionally is not a big deal, right? What I'm talking about is habitually, if we are complaining as a way of talking, as a way of interacting with people all the time, we need to maybe make some adjustments to that habit. This is one of the things that I'm asked to talk about on other podcasts pretty regularly. And so, so, so powerful a switch that you can make in your life. And a lot of times we don't even catch it. We don't even realize it. So here's my story. I was for 12 years a high school math and economics teacher. You may or may not know that. I also have worked in the corporate world. I work in corporate training. I've done a lot of different things. At the time that I was teaching high school, some number of years into that career, I don't remember exactly how many, I hit a big birthday. And on this big birthday, I started looking ahead at my life. And I had some trouble, quite frankly, imaginating teaching for 25 more years. And this is a whole separate conversation that we can have. You tell me in the comments or tell me on social media if you want to have it. But it's a whole separate conversation we can have about teaching and about the burnout that I hit in teaching. But for our story today, simply we know that I could not imagine being there for another 25 years. I mean, isn't it a bit hard to imagine doing anything for another 25 years? It's like hard for our brain to process. So at that time, I said, well, I really want to have some options. And what I decided to do was I decided to join a direct selling network marketing company. And this was for products that I already loved. So I said, why not? Let's see how it goes. Now, the long and short of it is I stayed with that company for quite a number of years and I had a lot of success with it. And that is the reason I became a mindset coach, because of all the mindset I had to learn related to that. But let's roll back to kind of early on when I'm starting out. I was in the kitchen one day with my husband and we were just chatting. I don't really even remember what we were talking about, but he turned to me and said, in just a conversational way, not an accusatory way or anything, he said, you know, if you don't like it, you don't have to do it. Why don't you just stop talking about the direct selling business? And I said, What? I do like it. What do you mean if I don't like it? I could just stop. I mean, that's nice, I guess. Thank you for being supportive, but huh? What? I was truly incredulous. And, you know, we remember situations that are more extreme in surprise, in sadness, in in happiness and joy. These are the situations that stick in our mind. So this one has stuck in my mind. I was shocked. What do you mean if I don't enjoy it? He said, Well, all you do is complain about it. And let me tell you, I did not realize that I was complaining about it all the time. So apparently, standing there having a conversation in our kitchen, what I was doing was complaining about this direct selling business that I was doing. And he was happy to listen and just was kind of saying, um, you don't sound happy, so why don't you just not do it? And I, the the key here is I had no idea. I did not know I was complaining. And I am so thankful for that conversation because I started to listen. Because of course, at first I was kind of thinking, I can't be complaining that much. Really? I can't be, right? I can't be complaining that much. Wouldn't I be just annoying people all the time? Maybe I was. Maybe I was annoying people all the time. I can't know that. We can't know what other people really think about us. But I started to listen. And I would go to school and I would just pay a little bit more attention to my conversations with my co-workers. I would pay a little bit more attention to conversations I had with my kids' friends' parents at sports or whatever else activities. I would pay a little bit more attention to the conversations I have with my friends and my neighbors. And you know what I heard? I heard, I'm so busy. I'm so tired. Oh my gosh, I didn't get enough sleep. The traffic was horrible. I mean, I can't ever get anywhere on time. Like, I'm so sorry, I'm late. The traffic, oh crazy. Or I can't believe how these people never do what they're supposed to, and nobody ever does this or that. And I'm so busy and I'm so tired, and the copier is always broken. Why is a freaking copier already always broken? And the weather and I had a boring weekend. I mean, just all of it. All of it. And in my little reenactment there, I sounded upset on some of those. And that was the case sometimes. But sometimes it was just conversation. I'd walk in, I'd chat with another teacher. We'd say, Oh, I had so much grading to do last night. Yeah, I know, always so much grading to do. And I seem to always leave leave it for the end of the month. And I don't know why I do that to myself. And, but you know, the weather wasn't very good, so it wasn't like I could go out and do anything. You know, like that whole conversation is us relating to each other and complaining about just these things that are going on in life. So as I started noticing this, I didn't really know how is it a big deal? I was, I was still learning about mindset, learning about the power of our thoughts and our emotions. I was still learning. So I said, what if I could, what if I could speak differently? And there are people in my extended family who tend to be quite pessimistic. And I had noticed this, and I had, you know, self-congratulated a little bit, patted myself on the back that I wasn't so pessimistic as XYZ person. And suddenly it occurred to me that maybe I was. Maybe I was pessimistic, like XYZ person in the extended family or in the friend group. And that was an eye-opener as well. So I said, you know what? Maybe I could have conversations differently. And I decided, let me see if I can just interact with my colleagues, with my friends, with my family, my neighbors, you know, who we're talking about without talking about the traffic, the weather. I'm so busy, the copier is broken, there's nothing to eat. And there was a period of time, I am not kidding when I say this, that I did not know how to have a conversation. Truly. I did not have a clue what to say. And this has been years ago now, so it's kind of amusing me to say this, but at the time, this was real and it was confusing. And I kind of felt silly. Like, why don't I know what to say? What in the world is wrong with me? I can't have a conversation with this teacher that I always have a conversation with every day. And it wasn't her fault or his fault or whoever I was talking to. It was that we were in this pattern. And when we got together, we got right back in the pattern. The train went right back on the track down the conversation. The excuse me, I meant to say down the complaining pathway in a conversation. I didn't know what to say. And so I would listen, and that's good too. That's a good way of communicating with other people. I would listen, and then I would think to myself, I don't know what to say. Like, I don't want to say, yeah, isn't this terrible? Yeah, isn't this terrible? What in the world do I say? And eventually I did figure out some ways to have a conversation without complaining, and I'm gonna share that with you. So let me just ask you, is this resonating? Are you feeling like, yeah, I think I see myself doing some of this too. Here's the problem. First of all, if we have these types of conversations, and I have a British friend who says, well, this is the way we British just talk. We talk about the weather. That's how we talk. And okay, culturally, right, we might all communicate differently in different situations. But there's a couple problems with complaining all the time, just sort of as our form of conversation. Number one, it keeps our interaction with other people very surface level. You're not learning anything real about whoever you're talking to if you're talking about complaining about the weather and how you're so busy. And they're not learning anything about you. And so maybe from a safety perspective, when I'm meeting someone new, maybe that's nice to have like this surface level conversation. But if that's what I'm always doing, then every interaction is just surface level. And we as people, particularly as women in midlife going through so many challenges, we need to have real communication at least with some people in our lives. We need the community that comes from that. So staying surface level is not going to do us any favors. Next, if we are focused on complaining, it's going to drain our energy, which is going to reduce productivity. So you can imagine that it's sort of mentally, if we're always saying that we're too busy, well, that is not a formula for productivity because I'm just sitting here thinking about how I'm so busy and I get on this mental, uh, what is it called? The mental mouse wheel. What is that called? Why can't I think of it? Anyway, I'm running and running, I'm so busy, and thus not doing anything, and then thus more busy. I'm thinking of a movie scene where one of the characters is saying, hence, like, we are complaining all the time about being so busy, hence, we are not getting anything done because we're on this hamster wheel, there's the word, of thinking we're so busy, hence, our productivity is down. Hence, we're even busier. And then the other character says, stop saying hence. Anyway, that is going to become a problem in your day-to-day life, in actually getting things done. Even when it's just the weather, the traffic. It's not, we're not complaining about serious, hard-hitting day-to-day issues, right? In some of these conversations, it still drains energy. It still drains it. Next thing sometimes we complain because we want attention. And this is kind of how children can be sometimes. And I let's anybody, we can all do it. But children in particular, I've studied human development as part of being a teacher. And as as we humans go through different developmental phases through life, we change the way we do this. But there are periods of time where we want attention, and it doesn't matter whether it's positive or negative attention, that's attention. And you may be kind of in one of those phases yourself. No judgment. Complaining will do that. And it's getting a little bit normalized because of the just prevalence of these scary or negative stories that we see in the news and in the media as well. They want someone to notice and pay attention. We do this ourselves. When we complain about something that is hard, or even just, I'm so busy, I'm so busy, I'm so busy. We're wanting someone to notice us. And maybe even we're hoping somebody can make it better. I would argue that most of the time it's just wanting somebody to notice us and feel bad for us, because that feeling bad for us is still a feeling. It's like getting the negative attention because that's some attention. You know, any attention is good. But sometimes that's why we're doing it. And that might feel good in the moment. We got people paying attention to us. Oh no, I'm sorry. The average person, according to a study I read, complains 30 times a day. And again, some of it's surface level, okay, surface stuff. The problem is amongst the three I've already mentioned, I got two more for you. Another one. Sometimes we complain in order to make ourselves smaller. And this one hits me a little personally because I don't want this for you, and I don't want this for me. If someone comes to us and says that something bad has happened, and I'm not talking about, you know, a chronic illness, a death in the family, I'm just talking about, you know, they got a flat tire or some something kind of medium or low bad has happened. Sometimes we want to make them feel better by showing them our day was worse. So they're saying, ah, I got a flat tire on my way in, and you know, I figured it out, but ugh. And you're like, oh my gosh, my day, ugh, you know, terrible. You should feel good. That's kind of what we're saying. You should feel good because I have it even worse than you. Lucky you. Sometimes we're making ourselves smaller so that other people we think might feel comfortable around us, might feel good. I'm here to say that is not a healthy way to communicate. So if that's what you're doing, catch yourself. And I'm gonna give you a couple tips on that, don't worry. And the overarching reason why I want us to all listen to how we're speaking is this last one. When we complain on a regular basis, even the little stuff, it's rewiring our brains to more easily continue complaining. Future complaining is more likely. So every time you think of things to complain about and you have a conversation with people, your brain is going, okay, that worked. Let me find other things. Let me find other things. That was a comfortable conversation, let me find other things. And that's other things to complain about. So our brain gradually is restructuring those thought links. It's changing how the reticular activating system recognizes things going on in your life to find the negative first, to find fault, to see the difficulties. And it starts to become more of your default in your subconscious brain. And we know the link between how we're feeling and the thoughts going on in our head. So, what's this gonna do to our emotional state? Well, nothing good. It's gonna do nothing good. If we go through our day with our reticular activating system, which is basically the filter that decides what you recognize in your life, in your reality, what you pay attention to. If we're going through the day and we're filtering in the stuff that gives us some complaining fodder, then we're gonna do it more, we're gonna do it more, we're gonna do it more, we're gonna keep seeing the bad stuff. And if we can get ourselves out of that default, it is going to change your emotional state. It's potentially gonna change your nervous system, it's going to change your health. It's big. So maybe I've convinced you that complaining is an issue. And in fact, John Gordon wrote a book about the no complaining rule, and his simple rule was no complaining allowed unless the complainer also offers a solution to the problem. So that's an interesting one. I'm gonna give you what I think we can try as we start to change, because as I said, I had some struggles with this. I had some struggles with actually changing my habit. He says, you can complain, but only if you're also going to offer a solution. So let's take the copier. He says, it's okay to say, oh man, the copier's broken again. The copier's broken again. Can you tell teachers have an issue with this a lot? I don't know, but nowadays, maybe there's not as many copies being made as when I was teaching. But we had an issue a lot. So maybe I can vent that and I can say, oh, the copier's broken again, rah. And then I provide a solution. I say, I'm gonna go get the service guy. I saw him around the corner in the science room. He was probably fixing their copier. Let me go get him. Let's take care of this. Or let me take that downstairs to social studies for you. I I think theirs is working. Okay. Because what you've done is switch the conversation to something productive. Now, is that easy? Not necessarily. And he says that too. Not necessarily. Our words, though, are creating thoughts. Our words are thoughts. They're in our head, they're coming out of our mouths, they're creating emotion, and that's affecting our action. If we've trained ourselves to always find the negative stuff because we want to complain about it, whoo, it's gonna change how we come across in the world. So when I decided that I was going to start to change this, as I said, I did not know how to have a conversation. Now, I'm gonna tell you what I did, and I'm also gonna tell you, I'm not perfect. Nobody's perfect. We're not perfect. I do still complain, and sometimes I do it not in a healthy way. And sometimes I catch myself and sometimes I don't. Sometimes later I think, uh, I was a little bit complaining in that whole scenario. Um, whoops. So it will still happen. Your brain is wired to skew a little bit negative because your brain is wired to protect you. We've talked about this many a time. And if you're at all uncomfortable in a situation, you might skew a little negative just as a protective mechanism. As long as we recognize it, we can always keep trying to do better. So I went through this phase where I did not know what. To say. And the first thing I did was just listen. And I tried to respond to things people were saying in a way that showed I had been listening. But what I learned not to do is not to make them feel like what they were saying was something they shouldn't be saying. Because let me tell you, that's going to be a fast trip to nobody wants to talk to you. If someone says, Oh my gosh, the traffic was terrible, and you say, Oh, don't pay attention to that. Today's going to be a great day. Or that's a silly thing to worry about. Why are you talking about that? No, no, no. Nobody wants to talk to you if that's what you're going to do. So, what I had to figure out is how could I redirect us, especially with people where we were both in the habit of just chit-chatting, chit-chatting about the weather being bad and the traffic being bad and we didn't even think anything about it? How could I redirect that and start creating new habits, but without being obnoxious, polypositive? Because while I want you to try to think positive and find positive things, we have to feel our feelings and not tromp all over other people's. So, what I ended up doing was coming up with a few questions that I would sort of always have in my brain that I could throw into a conversation that might direct us in a little bit different path. And I didn't just do this randomly in the middle of a conversation. Oh, the copier's broken. What are you looking forward to this weekend? We have to, we have to be a little bit more subtle than that. We have to pay attention to what other people are saying and value what they're saying. And when I had an opportunity to participate and put something into the conversation, then I wanted to have something that was ready, ready to go. So I had a couple. And I don't really keep these particular questions in my mind anymore the way I used to, because my pattern of communication has changed. But at that time, I had a couple in my mind. I would, I would be ready to ask what the person was looking forward to in the weekend. That's an easy one because we all are typically looking forward to the weekend. And so even if they just said, ah, just hanging around the house, great. That's a good thing to look forward to. It just changed the tone of the conversation a little bit, even just for that little minute. Or let's say we just had a weekend. I would say, what was fun about your weekend? And I wouldn't say a yes or no. I wouldn't say, Did you have fun this weekend or did you have a good weekend? I would say, what was good about your weekend? So maybe that would open up a little something to talk about. Maybe they would tell me something they did and we could talk about that thing, and that would become a bigger conversation. Maybe. Maybe. It just had these simple questions. It could be, where are you looking forward to traveling next if they travel a lot? Or what are you looking forward to this summer? Not all of my questions will work for you. What I'm recommending is if this is a struggle for you and you're thinking, oh my goodness, I don't think I'm going to know how to have a conversation either, just like she said, have one or two of these in your mind so that you can throw them in when it's appropriate in a conversation and see if you can just change the energy of that conversation even a little bit. Every little shift matters. Now let me pause a minute because one of the questions I often get when I talk to people about this is well, I feel upset that you're telling me I can't ever complain. What if I need to vent? So let me be clear. I'm not saying you can't ever complain. First of all, none of us are perfect. We're gonna do it sometimes anyway. But second of all, sometimes you really do need to vent. Venting is not the same thing as this complaining as conversation habit. One of the best things you can do with venting, and you could do this on your own or you could do this with a friend, is you could allocate a time. You could say, I need to vent for five minutes, stop me after that. And then you could this happen and that happened and blah, blah, blah. Because it is sometimes helpful to get it out. And you do need to feel the feelings. Maybe you each take five minutes, maybe maybe you each take 10, whatever. You give a time. You can even do this by yourself. You can do it with a journal. You can just scribble down for 10 minutes. All this stuff. And then put it down. And then ask yourself, how am I feeling? Like, what am I feeling in my body? Was that good? Was that helpful? Can I move forward and talk about something else and focus on something else? Am I now able to start thinking about some sort of resolution or some some sort of solution? Or maybe that was enough. Maybe I don't have to think about it anymore. And if you find yourself really venting hard a lot, then think about is it making your situation better? Because it can, for sure. But I think we need to put fences around it a little bit. If it's not making your situation better, if it's not making you feel better, then maybe it's too much, maybe it's too often. So we're making these gradual shifts where we have some ideas of what else to talk about. Well, first of all, we're just paying attention to our conversations, right? I want you to sort of be a little, I don't know, bird on your shoulder, angel on your shoulder, whatever. Listening to your own conversations with other people and listening. Is this what I'm doing? First step is always recognizing it. Second step is having a few ideas of what you could talk with someone about that maybe shifts the focus of the conversation when we get into this kind of complaining habit. Third thing is being intentional about venting. When you need to vent, you vent and you ask that person to keep you accountable. Here we're gonna do this and we're gonna put a fence around it, and then we're gonna move on and do something else. And then the fourth thing is something you've heard me talk about before. Complaining tends to, as we talked about, start our brains focusing on all the negative things, the things that we have the opportunity to complain about. That's what we're looking for. I'm looking around my life for things I can have conversations with people about because we need community, right? In midlife, we're dealing with a lot of stuff. So do you think you could maybe recognize in your life something that you could complain about? How many times do we say that in this period of life there's so much change? There's change with our kids, there's change with our parents, there's change with our jobs, there's change with our bodies. There's gonna be something that you can complain about. And so if we're focusing on always finding that, maybe not the ideal focus. So we want to start switching that, and you've heard me say this, we want to start switching that by looking for glimmers. And this is so tiny and simple, it's hard to imagine how powerful it is at first. I want you to pay attention throughout your day to little tiny moments of joy. My coffee tastes so good. I'm looking out the window and the breeze is blowing the leaves. It's so pretty. I feel like I'm in a tree house. Tiny things. I walk outside, take a deep breath, and the air is just lovely today. Somebody said something nice to me. Oh, it feels good. Feel it. Tiny things, doesn't matter what it is, but tiny things. Feel those things because that is going to do the exact opposite, and that is going to start training your brain, your reticular activating system, to look for more tiny joyful things. And what do you think happens when your brain gradually over time starts to learn to look for joyful things? You're going to find them, and you're going to find them more often and more often and more often, and you're not even going to realize you're actively doing it. It's all about perspective, and it's all about what the subconscious brain is looking for. So I hope that this episode gives you a way to move forward if you're finding yourself in this pattern, in this habit of just kind of complaining as conversation. And if you have questions about this or you want to talk about it, come find me on social media, cherylpfischer, almost everywhere. I am happy to chat with you about it. Share this episode with someone who would benefit. Share it on your socials. Tell them it was your favorite episode, whatever you want to do. And then make sure that you have hit the follow button because next week I have a Changemakers episode for you with a New York Times best-selling author. And she has written a book about women in the 1970s. It's historical fiction that I absolutely loved, and you will love our conversation. I'll see you then. Keep remembering midlife is your time to take just a little bit better care of yourself. On the inside and on the outside. Just a little bit better makes a big difference.