Complaint Free: A 21-Day Challenge

While reading Edwene Gaines's book "The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity: A Simple Guide to Unlimited Abundance", I came up to the chapter where she was talking about the 21-day challenge she set for herself in order to stop complaining and criticising. I admit I was intrigued. The more I read, the more I was excited to try this. So today, I'd like to share with you the new challenge I'm setting myself up for the next 21 days.

How does it work?

You make the commitment that for 21 days you will not gossip, criticize or complain to others or to yourself. Nothing negative said at all for 21 days. No matter what happens during that time, you should not complain. If you slip and say something negative, you'll just have to forgive yourself and then start all over again for another 21 days. So, as Edwene says in her book "on the 20th day you must be very, very careful!"

What is a complaint?

According to the dictionary, it is when we express pain, grief and discontent. It is a statement that something is unsatisfactory or unacceptable.

However it should not be confused with being neutral and just stating facts.

'Complaining is not to be confused with informing someone of a mistake or deficiency so that it can be put right. And to refrain from complaining doesn't necessarily mean putting up with bad service, quality or behaviour. There is no ego in telling the waiter your soup is cold and needs to be heated up, if you stick to the facts and you're always neutral.' 

Eckhart Tolle 

Why do we complain?

There are 5 reasons that explain our tendency to complain. People usually do it because they want to:

1. Get attention
2. Remove Responsibility
3. Inspire Envy
4. Power
5. Excuse Poor Performance

Why 21 days?

It was found that it takes 21 days for someone to form a new habit. Some might argue that this is wrong and that it actually takes more days than that, but I'm happy to try for 21 days and make sure I continue to do the same after that.

What is wrong with complaining?

Well, if you like to complain, then by all means go right ahead. However, when you complain, you keep being focused on the problem and not the solution. It can damage your health, be destructive to your relationships and limit your career success. When you stop complaining, you remove all the negativity around you and you are happier.

Will Bowen has written the book "A Complaint Free World". He handed out purple bracelets to inspire people to give up complaining and his ideas have exploded around the world with 6.2 million bracelets being shipped to 106 countries. (You can get the purple bracelet from his website)



I loved watching his video and listening to him explaining what the whole concept is all about and how to actually do it. So, I've decided to do this for the next 21 days starting from today.

I made myself a nice spread in my bullet journal to track my progress with a calendar of 21 days to tick off as I go along. I don't have a purple bracelet, but I have a nice black one that'll work just fine. I'm ready for this!

Have you tried this challenge before? What do you think about going complaint free? If you want to join me in this challenge, let me know in the comments below.