Kvetching Behavior and How it Hinders Success

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 26th, 2010

Kvetching is the Yiddish word for complaining, hand to the forehead, why is this happening to me, complaining, griping, and mental misery. In marketing it's always time for us to take a serious look at how our attitude affects our business. Studies show that you become the words you speak, and that the difference between people who succeed and those who fail is their ATTITUDE. For just one day, try to rid yourself of kvetching.

1. Pay attention to your thoughts. Mindfulness is being highly aware of what you are thinking at all times. It's not easy to do, but with practice, you can master it. By being mindful, you will begin to notice how many of your thoughts are positive or negative. Each time you find yourself thinking something negative, you need to stop and replace it with another, higher quality thought. What you think about, you attract. Pay attention to what you're doing with your mind. If you wish to attract better, you need to think better. For one day, eradicate negative thoughts from your life.

2. Look for the positive in everything. Some people might think this Pollyanna. But, the truth is that we make our lives what they are. We are the sum total of our thoughts and actions. The wonderful thing about life is that we always have a choice - no matter how much we might not believe this or see it in the moment. We can always find the bad in things or we can live from a higher place and seek out the positive. Why pick the dark side when you can walk in the light? For one day, find the positive in everything, no matter what.

3. Avoid negative talk. What we say, flows from what we think. When we start verbalizing our negativity this is when we really start to ?pollute? our life and that of others. Life is hard enough, why waste it talking about negative things. The more you do the less you'll attract people and opportunities. No one is interested in your problems as much as you are. As the saying goes, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. This way, you'll avoid re-enforcing any negative thoughts you might be having and the people around you will welcome the break from your intruding on their peace of mind. Just for one day, avoid saying anything negative. Speak only about positive things or say nothing at all.

4. Focus on productive things. Nothing can be accomplished by focusing on negative things. Negativity is all about stopping things, blockages, inaction, and being stuck. It will never lead you towards accomplishing the goals that underlie your vision. By focusing on productive things, you will be acting from a place of control, actively creating the reality you desire. Productive things are things that fulfill your goals. They are things that you can take charge of and direct. And, they are the stepping-stones that lead to accomplishment, success, and happiness. For one day, participate only in productive activities.

5. Take action. When you're in action, you just don't have the time, energy, or inclination to complain about what is going on around you. Your mind, body, and spirit are actively engaged in productive activities oriented towards achieving desired outcomes. In fact, if you find yourself in a negative frame of mind, taking any type of action is the quickest way to pull yourself out of your funk. Negative thinking tends to focus on the past, what could have been, and what you should have done. Action puts you in a more positive mode. When you take action, your mind is focused on the future, looking forward to results, accomplishment and success. For one day, take three actions towards accomplishing a selected goal.

6. Get clear. Often times, mental misery stems from chaotic thinking. Chaotic thinking is thinking that jumps all over the place, with no rhyme or reason. It often stems from having a poorly defined personal foundation or philosophy of life. When we have a clear sense of who we are, what we believe in, and what we stand for, we have a framework from which to operate our lives. With a strong foundation, the thoughts and experiences we have then have a place to ?land?. Based upon our framework, we are able to make sense of them and develop meaning from them. When we are without a solid personal foundation, everything in life seems chaotic and nonsensical. We don't get it, we don't understand, and frustration and anger are the results. By strengthening our inner core, we can better make sense of who we are and the world we live in. For one day, try to create a more clear understanding of something you are dealing with in your life.

7. Find resources and people, and get involved. Sometimes we find ourselves feeling miserable because we are operating from a place of isolation. We need to engage other resources and people to change how we feel. We can read interesting books. We can consult others or make new friends. We can try new ways of doing things. By engaging more fully in what life has to offer, we can get our minds off of ourselves and our problems and looking outward instead of inward. When we get engaged in life, we start appreciating how magnificent it really is. We focus our attention and intentions on service to others instead of focusing on our self and our ego. For one day, think about how you can get more involved in some aspect of your life and take one action in that direction.

8. Find better things to do. Our misery is often rooted in the activities in which we engage. We might not enjoy our commute to work, the types of work we do, doing dishes, or dealing with the same people who annoy us. If we find better things to do or different ways of doing the things we are currently engaged in, quite often we are able to change how we feel. For one day, think about how you might change one thing you do to make it more enjoyable. For example, we can take a different route to work or listen to books-on-tape to make our commuting more fun. We can use paper plates and plastic ware when we would like to avoid doing lots of dishes, or we can stand up for who we are and let the annoying people in our lives know that they need to change their attitude with us or leave the situation. We are responsible for our own happiness. We must make it happen.

9. Change your environment and you life will change. We are involved in all sorts of environments - communities, ideas, organizations, physical, mental, spiritual. If we change the types of environments in which we are involved, we will automatically change our thoughts and, thus, our life. Even simple changes in our physical environment, like filing paperwork, straightening up our desk, and aligning our books on the bookshelf can have a tremendous soothing effect on our mind. For one day, make several changes in your physical environment and notice the difference it makes in terms of your thoughts and emotions. You may then decide to tackle other environments and see what happens from there.

10. Get feedback from others. Often times we don't realize how horrible our attitude is until someone tells us. We are too close to the problem and not living from a place of higher awareness to realize that we complain about everything, look on the dark side, or never appreciate or express gratitude. If you want to know how you appear to the world, get feedback from others. Find out what you're complaining about, how often, and also how annoying that behavior is to others. Believe me, others can readily tell you how you act because they are experiencing you and your attitude first hand. Try to deal with their comments objectively. This valuable feedback can help you realize the impact that you are having on others and the environment. And, hopefully, this will empower you to make some changes to improve your attitude and, likewise, will create positive results for others as well. For one day, ask for feedback about your behavior and make an effort to improve upon it. What you do and think affects everyone; you have a responsibility to yourself and to others to do what is right and best at all times.

© Copyright 2004 by Alicia Smith