Hello, magical humans šš½
One of my favourite words is Abracadabra!
(To my mind, it always comes with an exclamation point.)
There are loads of different folk etymologies associated with it, but I resonate strongly with the Aramaic meaning: āI create what I speakā or āwhat I speak, appears.ā
Of course, thereās also the Oxford English Dictionaryās definition:
/ĖƦbrÉkÉĖdƦbrÉ/
a word that people say when they do a magic trick, in order to make it successful.
I love this as well: what magic tricks are we creating with our words? What if we have to speak our desires aloud to make them successful?
This week, Iāve been thinking about what I speak about: how do I express myself, to whom, and how often do I talk about what I really want?
If what I speak is created, why am I not more careful about what I say aloud?
š£ļø Complaints, Complaints
Many years ago, as part of a New Years resolution group I was in, we jumped aboard the 21 Day No Complaint bandwagon.
The challenge was the brainchild of Will Bowen, author of A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted. He wrote the book after his idea involving a simple rubber bracelet exploded into a worldwide phenomenon (donāt panic, thereās no band snapping ahead):
āBegin to wear the bracelet on either wrist. When you catch yourself complaining, gossiping, or criticizing, move the bracelet to the other wrist.ā
The aim is to get to 21 days with the bracelet on the same wrist. Simple, right?
A few weeks into the challenge, with much hilarity and conjecture about what actually constituted complaining, one of my group mates actually read the book, and exclaimed āHe says it can take four to eight months to break the habit! EIGHT MONTHS?!ā
We then adopted Tim Ferrisā criteria for the challenge:
āI defined ācomplainingā for myself as follows: describing an event or person negatively without indicating next steps to fix the problem.ā
šLetās Start Small: Noticing Complaining
From a mindfulness perspective, I love Will Bowenās focus on conscious attention as a tool for creating and maintaining new habits:
At the start, I wasnāt even aware of how much I was complaining, to myself, or to others. The physical reminder of the bracelet started to make me aware of just how often that wasā¦
In the next phase, Conscious Incompetence, I started to catch myself, āOops! I nearly had a b*tch thereā¦ā which truly started to show me how often those kinds of thoughts and conversations came up.
Conscious Competence is a more proactive stance: I started to notice more of the conditions that made me want to complain, or the people with whom I would commonly complain. I started to make different choices. I also noticed how I started to reframe some of my thinking around something ābadā happening.
Unconscious Competence is supposed to be the pinnacle, when the skill becomes second nature, and you can effortlessly teach it to others. Needless to say, I donāt think I got there, because more than a decade later, here I am, considering what I could use for my bracelet for this go around.
š¼ļø Reframing Complaining
I like the Tim Ferris criteria for this experiment, because it changed the complaining from something that was happening to me, to something I could look to do something about.
Because itās oh so easy to complain about the things that are HARD in this world.
A friend of mine calls this āReality Agreement.ā
For example, I think we can all agree, itās hard to buy a house in Australia. In this economy? Also, groceries and petrol are insane right now!
Now: there are the objective facts about housing, fuel and shopping prices, AND there are people who are still managing to get them done. Itās an easier conversation to look at all the ways it CANāT be done, than to seriously examine how it COULD be. Iām also present to how many hours Iāve spent b*tching about how difficult it all is, rather than figuring out all the moving pieces to handle my finances better.
I see this often in big institutions: by Reality Agreement, everyone can be dissatisfied, resigned, and have carte blanche to complain about āmanagementā and āthe way things ARENāTā. Iāve also become more aware of how those environments breed āComplaint Olympicsā ā who has it worse off??
Who you surround yourself with, and the ways in which you speak to the people around you, becomes an even more important part of the equation.
š§Ŗ Excited Adult Quotient
Once you become more aware of your complaints, it can feelā¦ not great.
But itās also a great opportunity to realise what really matters to you!
What do you complain about all the time? What are some little steps you could take to have more agency in this area of your life?
One of the juicy side effects of the Complaint Free Challenge is the experience of more joy, choice and gratitude ā so if you need a little assistance to pump up your gratitude meter, may I offer this brief meditation:
šš½ Appreciating The Little Things Meditation
āš½ Letās Do It Together
Whatās your relationship with complaining? Is it how you bond with people? Is it draining? Enlivening? How do you speak about people when theyāre not around?
Iāve love to hear how you relate to itā¦
ā¤ļø Right Now Iāmā¦
š Reading Min Jin Leeās sprawling historial fiction Pachinko, which follows members of a Korean/Japanese family across a century of trials, dramas, loves and triumphs. I love how she creates the inner worlds of her characters, particularly the women, who endure so much. This is this monthās Best Book Club Ever (BBCE) choice ā a group of women curated by the wonderful Lindy Burns, and who I will definitely share more about another timeā¦
šŗ Watching the time twisty Western āOuter Rangeā. Think beautiful Wyoming backdrops, redneck behaviour, family drama and a healthy dose of sci-fi weird. Watching these cowboys self actualise and heal their hurts is my favourite part.
šµ Listening to anything that will tempt me to get up out of bed on these icy Melbourne winter mornings ā and right now, BeyoncĆ©ās Ya Ya is doing the trick better than most. Try and stay still with this turned up!
š¦® How Can I Help?
This week, I had the pleasure of mentoring at a Girls In Tech event: if youāre wondering where all the brilliant women are in the industry, Girls In Tech events is always chock full of them. If youāre a woman who wants to connect with other brilliant woman, check out their amazing events.
šļø 745am AEST Thursdays, you can catch me answering curly work relationship questions on Libbi Gorrās Enterprise Breakfast show on Disrupt Radio, and anytime, on the Disrupt podcast The Advisory Board.
š„ Iāve just launched a new 2 hour workshop on Preventing Burnout, based on the latest resilient communities research, so reach out if youāre looking for something connective and effective for your team!
š©š½āš I also teach and keynote on mindfulness, clear communication and my personal favourite: āHow Not To Be An A$$holeā so please reach out if I can be helpful.