Starting A Complaint Free Challenge
while reading A Complaint-Free World by Will Bowen
In this series, I am reading and journaling about the book and attempting a 21-day challenge of no complaining. Would you be willing to do this?
The book for this series is A Complaint-Free World by Will Bowen.
Before starting the complaint-free reading and 21-day challenge, I told myself I don’t complain often. I stated that this challenge would be easy. How wrong I was! I’m 10 days into the challenge. I’ve got to day 2 once. Day 1 seems to be my happy state of complaining at present. However, even though getting back to day 2 seems to be a challenge in itself. I have become more aware that I’m changing my purple band or pebble in my pocket for when I’m at work less often than at the start. To me, that is an achievement.
I’m more mindful of others around me and their complaining, allowing myself to pause and think I’m not joining in. I wouldn’t have thought twice before the challenge and joined in with everyone else. I would be on day 10 of this challenge if I weren't at work—or so I believe. This area of my life has been the hardest to stop complaining about.
“To be a happy person who has a mastered your thoughts and has begun creating your life by design, you need a very, very high threshold of what leads you to express grief, pain and discontent.” (A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen, pg 26)
When reading this book, the above quote made me pause and think - Hold up! If I can’t express grief, pain and discontent, how am I supposed to process things? I have been on a personal development journey for at least 10 years. Before this, the world was against me.
During my journey, I thought I had some responsibility, and the world couldn’t take all the hate I was giving it. I was changing my thought patterns and attempting to direct my life in a more aligned way. I still have a way to go. Personal development is an ongoing journey in my eyes. I will never get to an endpoint—just celebrations along the way. I was becoming more of a happier person, or so I believed. The life I was creating was more aligned with my values, and I was processing my feelings and thoughts a lot better than before.
After some more reading, community discussions, and an event with the author, my belief about this quote changed somewhat. Grief, pain, and discontent are going to show up in my life. It’s how I process and display these towards others, whether complaining or authentically going through grief, pain, or discontent. The awareness I have seen of myself and others during these 10 days has been eye-opening. My threshold of what leads me to express these emotions is not high. I have a lot of work to do.
I feel that the world should have a lot less complaining in it. I believe the world would be a kinder place if there were. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t complain. I think this would need to be constructive and to the correct person who can deal with the complaint. Not only that, but it’s how a person expresses the complaint. Done correctly, complaints can be dealt with quickly and efficiently. Both sides of the complaint would have some benefit to it. The person being complained to could have some feedback that isn’t being shouted at them and can fix the problem for all, not just that one person.
Also, this has made me think about how much I give positive feedback to others. I don’t think I do this enough and would like to be mindful of doing so in the future.
Especially at work. This is the place I complain about and in the most. One day, I lost count of how many times I changed over the pebble in my pocket at work. I have always done this; it has become an ingrained habit. It could be that other people are not doing their jobs. It could be that my job role is still unclear, everything changes to what I can and can’t do, and I lose track.
Things could have changed at the last minute, and I haven’t had time to process these changes.
I have seen more triggers in the last 10 days. Being aware of them and seeing them in this complaint-free world mindset, I have thought about whether it was reasonable for me to be triggered in the first place.
“You must fail your way to success.” (A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen, pg 35)
I partially agree with this quote. I say partially because I don’t think failure is the only way to success. Success means different things to each person. But I agree that failure leads to learning and reframing thoughts and ways of living that can lead to success. At the time of the failure, it might not feel great. Moving my bracelet and pebble over does not feel good in the moment. Knowing I’m still on day 1 at day 10 can sometimes feel frustrating. That being said, I have seen an improvement in the reduction of complaints I have made over this time. I hope these failures will lead me to success in this context.
Will I get past day 1? Find out more in next week’s post.
With Love
Tami xx
👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽