A few days ago I started a new ongoing challenge, inspired by Michael Neill’s book Supercoach. It’s about choosing to not complain for anything bad that could happen to me. Just take it as it is because I can’t change it.
This doesn’t mean that if I’m at a restaurant (Covid permitting!) and I am served the wrong plate I shouldn’t ask for it to be changed. Of course I can! What I shouldn’t do is moan about it or show an attitude to the waiter, this is the complain that I must avoid.
The objective is to spend at least one week without complaining. It’s not easy at all! In these first few days I spotted myself complaining for many minor things, like ‘damn! I put on my left sock inside-out!' Well, the rules is, ‘every time I complain I have to start over again’. Imagine when you get to 6 days in a row and then you can’t hold that complain back… Start over again!
So far in 3 days I started over twice. But I count to get better and at some point not so far in the future get to 7 days in a row, yayy!
What will happen then? Well, I will raise the bar and make the challenge last 1 month! And when I finally make it to 1 month, raise it again to a quarter, then a year. Imagine, a full year without complaining!
Nice Challenge but What’s the Point?
The point is that we create our reality by what we think about the things that happen to us and around us, and then by what we do in relation to our thoughts. It’s all in our brain. What happens just happens.
By learning to not complain we learn to detach our happiness from what happens to us, and attach it to how we choose to react to what happens to us. We can be happy or at least not-stressed in any circumstance, even when bad things seem to happen to us.
‘What happens just happens’ is not a sort of passive acceptance of reality. It is the observation that what happens is not related to what we choose to do when it happens. How we choose to react.
Since I make choices about how to react to circumstances every second of my life, why not choose to stay serene rather than have an issue.
