I want to make a suggestion, but I don't want you to take it the wrong way.
Re: the complaining, and any other goal you have which is "I need to stop doing X," the mind doesn't work that way. If you tell yourself "I won't X," you've just focused your mind on X and it'll be harder to avoid. For example: Don't think about purple pigs. Now tell me your mind isn't imagining lavender-colored porcine creatures - of course it is! It was just primed to think about them.
Psych research has repeatedly shown that people who set positively-phrased or affirmatively-phrased goals have much better success than those who set negatively-phrased goals. Instead of "I won't complain," try "I will say what's good about my situation." I used to focus on how much we didn't have financially, and tell myself "I will not spend any money because we don't have enough." That didn't help. It just made me more miserable. Starting this past January, however, I found a technique that did help. I started to write down three things I'm grateful for every day. That moved my mind away from a focus on lack and towards a focus on abundance. It also made me less depressed and less anxious - win-win.
This isn't the same thing as "positive thinking," either. It's just shifting your mind's focus towards what you want to accomplish instead of what you want to avoid. It works better.
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Date: 2014-04-08 02:59 pm (UTC)Re: the complaining, and any other goal you have which is "I need to stop doing X," the mind doesn't work that way. If you tell yourself "I won't X," you've just focused your mind on X and it'll be harder to avoid. For example: Don't think about purple pigs. Now tell me your mind isn't imagining lavender-colored porcine creatures - of course it is! It was just primed to think about them.
Psych research has repeatedly shown that people who set positively-phrased or affirmatively-phrased goals have much better success than those who set negatively-phrased goals. Instead of "I won't complain," try "I will say what's good about my situation." I used to focus on how much we didn't have financially, and tell myself "I will not spend any money because we don't have enough." That didn't help. It just made me more miserable. Starting this past January, however, I found a technique that did help. I started to write down three things I'm grateful for every day. That moved my mind away from a focus on lack and towards a focus on abundance. It also made me less depressed and less anxious - win-win.
This isn't the same thing as "positive thinking," either. It's just shifting your mind's focus towards what you want to accomplish instead of what you want to avoid. It works better.
I hope this helps.