10 Benefits of Not Complaining Without Being a Doormat

Focusing on what you want is a superpower.

Complaining is the opposite.

You focus on what you don’t want and do nothing beyond nagging. This habit creates more of what you don’t want and makes you feel miserable.

Complaining is part of a process, not the solution. Don’t fear you’ll become a doormat if you don’t complain. It won’t happen if you know what to do.

Let’s begin.

10 Great Reasons Why You Should Stop Mindless Chronic Complaining

1. Your finances will improve. Money represents value. “As you begin to value yourself and your world more, you will vibrate at a level that attracts greater financial benefits.”

Your finances may improve through pay raises or increased job opportunities. Also, you’ll get things that you may have had to pay for in the past.

2. You’ll have an impact on your family. Your children will copy your behavior. Family dinner table won’t be a time to gripe and gossip. It will be an opportunity to talk about what went well that day.

3. Because you’ll feel angry and afraid less often, you’ll run into angry and afraid people less often too. You’ll no longer attract them with your own negative emotions.

4. Negativity drains you. If you stop mindless chronic complaining, you’ll have more positive energy to focus on what you want.

You’ll get things more easily. People better help someone who is agreeable than a person that berates them.

But unexpressed negative emotions keep you stuck and can cause pain in your body. It’s important to be aware of why not to complain in a healthy way and avoid suppressing your ‘negative’ emotions.

5. You’ll become resilient. You’ll cope with the trial moments in your life.

Approach any situation with a positive outlook. It will help you to overcome obstacles and persevere to reach your goals.

6. You’ll be out of the victim mode. You’ll take responsibility for what’s going on in your life and work toward changing what you don’t like.

7. You’ll take notice of how important is what you say and what you do. Your negativity and complaints may affect your mind, body, and affairs. It’ll mess your health, relationships, and finances.

8. You’ll feel grateful. Complaining focuses on lack and thanksgiving focuses on wholeness.

9. Complain less to improve your relationship with your spouse, friends, coworkers, and children.

We tend to complain to family members, friends and coworkers. But we like to be around people that complain less than we do. People that inspire us to do better in life.

10. You’ll stop your ‘pain addiction.’ According to Bowen, complaining triggers pain, in this case, emotional pain.

Pain triggers endorphins, an anesthetic released by the body’s natural pharmacy. You’ll experience withdrawal when you are giving up complaining then you’ll feel better.

What to Do Instead of Complaining

Complaining is part of the process but you get stuck if you don’t give the next step. Will Bowen states in his book A complaint free world, “all change begins with dissatisfaction. It begins when someone like you sees a gap between what is and what can be. Dissatisfaction is the beginning, but it can not be the end.”

Here is a simple but powerful way to take action toward fulfillment.

Look for the root of your behavior. The beliefs that are causing you to behave a certain way. For example, you aren’t confident. Replace the negative statements with positive ones.

It’s not necessary to look for the exact situation that created the behavior. The event that caused your doubts will surface as part of the healing process.

Asking questions is a great way to identify patterns you want to heal. Meilena Hauslendale, the author of Stop Complaining: Guide to Living Life Instead of Complaining About It, has 7 great questions:

1. Do you constantly find drama in your life or do you surround yourself with people that have dramatized issues?

You have to be aware if you are an enabler. In other words, you usually put other people’s needs ahead of and at the expense of your own.

Helping other people has its limits. If you take other people’s responsibilities you’re hurting more than helping.

If you’re doing more to get others to be giving, it’s not a good strategy. There’s a difference between giving and enabling.

If you’re the drama in your life, consciously or unconsciously, you believe you gain something from it. You’ll drain your helper’s energy because of your inability or lack of making positive life choices.

2. What life situations do you find keep reoccurring? Is there any pattern?

You create events in your life and attract people that match your beliefs. First, identify the patterns in your life. Second, choose a constructive way to deal with the situation and change it for the better.

For example, you attract people that are unstable. So ask yourself why is this the case. What will happen if you choose stability? Would you know how to behave in a stable relationship? Or you feel ‘comfortable’ in an unstable relationship because you’re used to be needed?

You can be in a negative situation out of conformity. You think that’s how life is and there’s nothing better than that. Think again, look for ways to bring harmony back into your life.

3. What is your plan of action? If you are spending more time with negative people or situations then what form of action are you going to take to change this? Do you want to change this? What effect has having certain negativity in your life had on you?

Negative situations or people can be draining and you don’t question them because it’s familiar. In other words, you’ll feel uncomfortable in a different environment. A positive situation put you out of your comfort zone even though it brings joy and prosperity.

You are in situations out of habit not because you’re happy. Either you’re the catalyst of change in your life or life itself will bring it to you. It’s better to take responsibility to initiate change to move away from bad habits.

Hauslendale recommends to break away in spurts. First, take a week or two away from any outside drama or negativity that you would normally get caught in. Second, compare how you feel with how you did feel. Challenge yourself to replace negative with positive habits.

Change will bring discomfort. So keep an open mind because it’s temporary and the rewards are worth the hassle.