Gratitude Challenge – Going 24 Hours without Complaining

As part of my gratitude challenge for 2019, February’s challenge was to go 24 hours without complaining. So one day last week – during half term no less, I decided to see if I could manage it.

If you think about it, complaining is such an intrinsic part of our society and so many of us complain without ever having the intention of doing something about it. You know what I mean, seeing that your partner hasn’t put their dishes in the dishwasher, grumbling to yourself about it, putting the dishes in there yourself and never saying anything to them anyway. Is there any point in complaining with no action? If it is something that really bothers you, you could mention it to your partner in a constructive way, or if it doesn’t just accept it and put the dishes in the dishwasher and don’t stress or put yourself in a negative head space by complaining.

I should put my hands up and honestly say that this is totally something that I do as well and a habit that I want to try and break.

So last week, I set about having a day where I didn’t complain about anything. I did it on what I knew was going to be a good day. It was a day I met up with my sister and her children at Cliveden. It was a gloriously sunny day and the children played so nicely together, but I did have a baby with a cold who had a slight temperature in the morning and we met with some traffic on the way there too. All things which could have been complaining triggers for me.

It’s interesting how easy you go to complain about something and what a quick reaction it is. I really want to achieve a personal goal where I complain less and accept things the way they are or change them. To be grateful that I had a lovely day and traffic is just one of those things, that really is the ultimate goal.

I am pretty sure that I did manage to go the whole day without complaining verbally, if I did slip up it wasn’t something I was aware of shall we say. But not so much on my internal thoughts. How hard is it to change your internal dialogue? The instant oh on they’re doing that again, oh looks at that hideous pile of washing, before having to correct yourself and remember to think about things another way. This is the part I found the complete hardest of the challenge. The internal negativity. So in the in terms of the day I would say it was a part success and I need to now try and work on my internal outlook at things. To improve how I think about things on the inside in order to make my outlook happier and more positive.

Did you join in? How did you do?