The fall semester of my second and final year of grad school has just begun. Everyone in my program is required to take a Counseling seminar that meets a couple times during the semester and discusses the counseling side of speech-language pathology. We had our first meeting two weeks ago and were each assigned the task of planning a Personal Change project. Our professor explained that it does not have to be school-related and some examples she gave were "drinking 8 glasses of water a day" or "exercising 3 times a week." Once we come up with a change that we are personally invested in, we are required to journal about it once a week and participate in two online discussions twice during the semester with the rest of the class.
I have decided that my personal change is going to be made in the realm of verbal complaining. I can not take full credit for this idea, as I first heard of it from here. Since I heard about that 21-day challenge a few years ago, I've been wanting to try it out myself, or at least a variation of it. Since I'm required to do this personal change project for more than a 21-day period, I've decided to make my goal "to stop myself from complaining verbally at least 2 times per day." Ultimately, I would like to stop myself from complaining EVERY time I have the urge, but I want to be realistic and understand that sometimes it helps to vent to someone you can trust about something that is bothering you. My professor replied to my personal change idea with the information that, when you take away a behavior, you have to replace it with something else. She gave me the idea of, instead, stating something that I'm grateful for. I am still struggling with how to do this without feeling like it is too contrived. I wouldn't mind thinking to myself something I'm grateful for, but saying it out loud and out of place (to my conversational partners) still seems difficult, thought I admittedly haven't tried it yet.
I will briefly discuss how this project has been going during the past week. One of the first few days of this project, I had a very difficult night at work. It was extremely challenging for me to bite my tongue so that I wouldn't complain. That night really got me thinking about the specifics of complaining and what actually counts or what is just a discussion or statement. For example, if I have to get up at 5:30 AM the next day and I simply say to someone "I have to get up at 5:30 AM tomorrow" it doesn't SEEM like a complaint since it is just a statement, but the listener will undoubtedly reply with a sympathetic statement, as if it were something I was complaining about. For this project, I will treat statements like this as complaints since it is obviously a negative thought. Using the same example, instead of making that statement, I will say something like "I can't wait to see my middle schoolers tomorrow." This works better because it is positive and pretty much always true! Which makes me think that sometimes I might complain just to make conversation...which is ridiculous! On other days this week, there were whole days where I didn't have the urge to complain at all. As the semester gets busier, and friends are complaining about the amount of work we have, stopping myself from participating in the negativity will be a lot more challenging!
Hey Ashley, I saw this link from FB. Very interesting project. I'm not sure I think there needs to be zero complaining going on in personal interactions, as you mentioned it is sometimes good to vent. As for it being a conversation starter, I think that happens a lot, and is akin to the gossip-nature of communication. I think from an anthropological standpoint, it probably has a function, like evoking empathy or hoping to find out someone else can relate to your annoyance (or whatever). Maybe even seeking validation, like Is it OK for me to be annoyed by xyz? Anyway, extraneous complaining IS unnecessary and may be annoying to others. I like how you are going to "count" statements with *intended* complaint-like meanings as well as more obvious complaints. And I know very well how the buzz can grow among classmates to gossip about how much work there is (well, it's true, and I admittedly partake). Looking forward to reading about your process here. Was this Diane's idea to blog, or you just decided to?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Nicole! It was my idea to blog, since most of my friends have blogs that I read regularly and I have to journal every week anyways. Now my friends can read mine! Plus, I thought it would be good to get other people thinking about this kind of thing, since it's always good to think positive!
ReplyDeleteYay! You are doing it! I SO know what you mean about complaining just to make conversation. I've definitely done that too, so many times... and probably don't even notice it anymore.
ReplyDeleteI bet that comparing your daily trials and tribulations to the stuff you saw people experiencing in Ecuador will probably help to get some good perspective, too. I know that sometimes when I get pissed off about, say, not having Internet in my apartment for the next two weeks because England has really long set-up delays, I realise that good lord, at least I have a house and lots of warm clothes and I'm safe and dry from this rainstorm, and I have an internet cafe across the street, and I can eat chocolate to make myself feel better, and I will have it in a few weeks, which isn't all that long. The point of that perspective isn't to make yourself feel bad or punish yourself for having been born into a more privileged life, which is what I didn't get so well for a while, but rather just to appreciate everything you do have - just like you said above!
What an interesting idea! I think I like your take on the original project much better. I couldn't go for 21 days without being sarcastic! And I'm not sure that sarcasm is always a bad thing, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI wish you luck on this and look forward to seeing your progress!