Complaint Free Challenge
Rob Coles
Can you go for 21 days without complaining, criticising, or gossiping?
TL;DR Yes, but it will take a lot longer than 21 days 😁
The challenge is to go for 21 consecutive days without complaining, criticising, or gossiping. If you catch yourself doing any of these things, you have to start the 21 days again from day 1. You wear a bracelet, or have some other physical thing like a coin in a pocket and do a physical action - swap wrists or pockets each time you complain, ctiticise or gossip.
To be clear, you are allowed to complain directly and only to the person who can fix the problem - a waiter, colleague, partner etc. But you are not allowed to complain about them to anyone else. The complaint must also be spoken.
The idea is to retrain your brain to be more positive, and it worked for me. The principle is that the vocalising of the complaint is what makes you aware of it. Just having the thought without saying anything doesn’t count, although the hope is that the thoughts will also diminish over time as you become more aware of them.
Will Bowen has a slightly laboured acronym for why people complain - GRIPE:
- Get attention
- Remove responsibility
- Inspire envy
- Power
- Excuse poor performance
I don’t want to do any of these and the challenge seemed like it shouldn’t be too hard - I’m surrounded by complainers, obviously, but not me - I am a shining example of all that is positive and good. Hmmm. I ordered the bracelets.
The first time I tried the 21 days I was terrified of saying anything after I failed the first 3 days in a row. I have since taken a bit of a more generous view on the rules. I figured that if Tim Ferriss can do it, then I can too!
I try to include “intent”, as my sense of humour tends towards the sarcastic. I was accused of being “even more boring than usual” so I tried to come up with some compromise within the spirit of the challenge. If my complaint, or criticism is intended as a joke, I don’t swap wrists. Otherwise time to swap. I am currently on my third bracelet after breakages from swapping wrists so often.
I try to do this challenge each year. It is part of my 25 for 2025 list for this coming year and has been on the list since 20 for 2020. Each year I think it will be easier, but I am surprised at how much I backslide.
I have started early on next year’s challenge, on 10th December, 2024. As I write this, it is 27th December and I am on day 2. I have got as high as 5 so far this run.
As a learning exercise for working with React Native I wrote an app to track how many days, and what wrist I am on, as my memory is pretty terrible. Remembering which wrist was current was normally OK but I’d blur on how many days. I could see an app for Apple devices but nothing at the time for Android so I had a go.
Plan for this year (another 25 for 2025) is to develop this in Kotlin for Android as I try to learn Kotlin.
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