You may have seen her on Saturday Night Live. She’s Debbie Downer and she’s a real downer. When she goes out with her group of optimistic, happy friends, it is not long before she brings the entire clan down with her depressing comments about injuries, accidents, and illness. We all may know a Debbie Downer, but we also understand that we’ve all done it at one time or another—and may even do it several times a day. When we complain, gossip, and criticize others, we bring negative energy into not only our own lives, but also the lives of those around us. Just turn on the news and you realize how easy it is to be a Debbie Downer these days.
In the book A Complaint Free World, Will Bowen suggests wearing a bracelet or rubber band around the wrist to tackle the challenge of eliminating this habit or pattern. Every time you catch yourself complaining, criticizing, or gossiping, you must move the bracelet to your other wrist. You may not remove the bracelet entirely until you have gone twenty-one days straight without gossiping, complaining, or criticizing.
Is it hard to quit gossiping, complaining, and criticizing? Definitely. While this practice may not be perfect for everyone, it does create awareness, which is the first step in initiating positive change in our lives.
While attempting to create awareness, it may be easier to tackle one habit or pattern at a time. For example, for the first seven days, focus on decreasing gossip. During the second week, turn your attention toward complaining. In the third week, do your best to address your criticism of others.
In the beginning of this practice, your bracelet may move quickly from wrist-to-wrist as you learn how often you have been allowing negative comments to surround your life like a black cloud. But then, after a few days, you may notice that you are switching your bracelet from wrist-to-wrist less often. Even better, you most likely are beginning to feel happier. Without being allowed to gossip, criticize, or complain, you could be smiling, laughing, and spreading positivity more often. What could be better than that?
You may never make it twenty-one days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping, but you might get close. The book suggests that this process of changing how we view life may take as long as four to eight months, but isn’t that a short period of time in an entire life? Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like an unrealistic goal at all.
Simply put, when you feel the bracelet on your wrist, it reminds you that you are a work-in-progress. Although you are not perfect, you are perfectly capable of becoming a better person with every day.
All blog content is original, not AI-generated.
Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.
