Lately, I’ve been thinking about how it can be hard to see growth when we don’t track it in some way. I don’t think growth is all about getting another gold star on your chart, but it is encouraging to know when we are making progress and moving in the right direction of our goals.
Today, I am going to focus on one area where I need growth, and I am going to try to come up with a plan to ensure that I actually remember to work on it.
No complaining or whining or being negative. This is one that has been added to my list of “areas to improve” recently, and an area where I need a lot of help. I don’t think most of us realize how easily we fall into the trap of complaining or being negative–at least I never did. I struggled with depression for years, especially in my twenties, and it wasn’t until I was around 30 years old that I started to realize that the thoughts that played in my head were much more negative than positive as a whole; it was also around that time that I began to believe that I could shift my thinking and help myself become less depressed generally. And it worked.
In the beginning, I simply tried to be less negative, meaning I didn’t allow myself to focus on every little bad thing that could or did happen in my life. Over time, I was able to actively look for good things and it has made a huge difference in how I view my life. At 25, I thought I was and always would be an easily depressed person, but now I no longer embrace that identity.
Despite that, I am still quick to notice when little things go wrong and focus on the negative. The dog threw up on the carpet. Someone cut me off in traffic. My toddler threw a ball at the soap dispenser for the fiftieth time and also knocked over two water glasses in the process. My daughter woke up from her nap after twenty-three minutes, just as I was starting a workout. In all of these cases, my first response tends to be negative, to complain.
Even when I call my sisters or friends and we ask each other how things are going, my tendency is to note the negative first. Mention how my little one woke up three times last night and I am so tired, or talk about how to house is a wreak and I haven’t vacuumed in a week. I’m not saying that I can never mention things like this, because life is filled with frustrating moments. But the simple act of speaking about those frustrating moments gives them more weight than the moments that I might not mention–like how my daughter has started pulling herself up on her feet now, or how my son is starting to say his sister’s name. I don’t want to lose the opportunity to speak about and thus reinforce the beauty of those moments.
About two weeks ago I came across a snippet of a woman talking about how she created “No Whining Wednesdays.” She started creating accountability for herself to not whine or complain or be negative on that one day of the week and I love that idea. Start small (although it might not feel so small when I try to spend an entire day without whining or complaining) and obviously that start will hopefully lead to reducing negativity and complaining every day.
What we think about and speak about creates, to a large degree, the lens through which we see the world. Not only do I want to focus on being a strong and positive force in my small sphere, but I especially want to teach my children to learn these skills, and I can’t expect anything of them that I am not willing to do myself.
Tomorrow might be Friday, but I am going to implement the “No Whining Wednesday” to my day and report back on how it goes.
