How to Break the Cycle of Complaining

Complainers are like smokers: most want to banish them to the back-forty and out of the public eye. Smokers know better than anyone what it feels like to be ostracized from polite society. They've been moved away from the public places and entryways and forced to even cross the road to fire up at the airport. And because of the inconvenience of being a smoker and the social implications that come with it, smokers' numbers have dwindled. Smokers also know the health hazards associated with it.

But this is about complainers, not smokers, serial complainers to be precise - not the people who occasionally find a problem that needs a solution.

Whiners and complainers have not been sent packing in the same way as smokers because people fail to see the connection between complaining and their own results in life. There are hazards to complaining just like there are hazards to smoking:

• Complainers are picked last for teams and activities.
• Complainers don't get invited to parties for fear of bringing the event down.
• Complainers are reported to management more than any other personality type.
• Complainers rarely have 'good" friends - mostly just sympathetic ears too afraid to say something.
• Complainers do not get promoted at work. Period.

How many of your bosses got their jobs by complaining their way to the top? Think about it.

Until complaining becomes as socially unacceptable as smoking, it will continue. People need to stand up and say, "If you're about to whine, moan or complain, I'm not interested in hearing it." But most won't do that because people want so desperately to be liked and to not offend. Yet, whining is offensive. People are so afraid to stop a complainer for seeming heartless. They don't want to offend but will endure offensive behavior. I don't get it.

Here's how you break the cycle of complaining: you say something. Until people stand up and say, "if you want to complain, take it outside," not much is going to change. I learned long ago that in order to change a human behavior requires a significant emotional event. Scolding a complainer in a public place (embarrassing them) would qualify as a significant emotional event. Being embarrassed is a huge fear for 90% of the population but no thought is given to how much they embarrass themselves when they complain incessantly. A single public humiliation would begin to change the behavior. If you want to stop a repeat of the same-old same-old, speak up and act immediately before you allow the complainer's complaining to become a habit (like smoking).

In the same way kids follow their parents' model (smoking), so too will they follow in how they look at and complain about the world. Someone has to break the cycle. Say something.
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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