The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work (Jon Gordon)

by Jon Gordon

what we need the most we resist the most.

“No matter what the psychologists say, complaining doesn’t make us feel better. Maybe temporarily, but in the long run complaining creates a cycle of negativity that feeds itself and grows. Think about it. For years psychologists had their patients hit punching bags to relieve anger only to find out recently that this practice creates more violence. It works the same with complaining. When we complain, we feed the negativity.

Step 1, you do a No Complaining Day. I call it a complaining fast. You quit cold turkey. It’s great because it causes you to monitor your thoughts and realize how negative you really are.

Instead of letting it generate negative energy, we can use it for a positive purpose. We can use complaints as a ‘signal’ or ‘sign,’ letting us know we are on the negative road and then in the next moment we can take a detour to get on the positive road.

2. Focus on “Get To” instead of “Have To.”

With mindless complaining, you are mindlessly focusing on problems; however, with justified complaining you identify a problem and the complaint moves you toward a solution. Every complaint represents an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive.

Positive energy flows from the top down in our organization. It trickles up and moves sideways, but it flows from the top down. Positive leadership is essential,”

If everything came easy, we wouldn’t know what it felt like to truly succeed.