I had never heard of it before, but my friends, a married couple, told me they were both doing it.  “It’s so hard” they shared with me, but it was making a big difference. It was called the 21 Day Complaint Free Challenge.  The goal is to go 21 days in a row without complaining. As a reminder, you put a bracelet on your wrist and you switch it each time you catch yourself complaining.  When you switch the bracelet, your 21 days resets, meaning you’re on Day 1 again. Sound easy? Hah! The furthest I’ve gotten in two weeks is Day 3. But already I have noticed a change for the better.

The founder of this 21 Day Complaint Free Challenge is Will Bowen, a Kansas City minister.  In 2006, while giving a series of talks, he noticed how much people focused on what they didn’t have or didn’t like. He was concerned about the negative impact on people and in their relationships.  He came up with the challenge as an experiment explaining his rationale that word choice determines thought choice, which in turn determines emotions and actions. The reason for the goal of 21 days?  That is the length of time research shows it generally takes to change a habit. And complaining is much more of a habit then you realize, as those of us undertaking the challenge are finding out.  

My own experience has shown me how often I react with a complaint or use it to start a conversation.  “It’s so frustrating,” I might say to my friend and then complain of something I’m annoyed by, expecting this other person to join in.  Bowen posits there are five main reasons that people complain. The first reason may be simply to get attention, hoping to be noticed and validated.  The second reason may be to avoid taking responsibility about why something won’t work out, blaming some other person or cause. A third reason may be to make us feel better.  By putting someone else down, we feel superior. The fourth reason he suggests is an attempt to gain power, pulling people in to support our perspective. And finally, the fifth reason Bowen suggests is to excuse bad performance.  It is the past tense version of avoiding taking responsibility. We create stories that deflect from our own failure or missteps. Together, he creates this handy acronym: GRIPE (get attention responsibility, inspire envy, power and excuse).

A complaint, as defined by Will Bowen, is “to express grief, pain or discontent.”  Fortunately for me, in his view, a complaint must be spoken, by definition, and does not include our negative thinking.  It also does not include speaking directly to (and only to) a person who can directly resolve or help you resolve your problem (telling a server at a restaurant if something is wrong with your order is not a complaint, for example.). Complaining is any time you gossip, complain, or criticize out loud.  The effect of my Complaint Free Challenge time so far is pretty powerful. I have become much more aware of my negativity. I am noticing how much of a reflex saying something negative can be. The Challenge is indeed helping me let go of a negative thought and reframing it with something more positive. Already, although I am only getting a few days in a row, I do feel I am thinking differently.  I can see that with time, if and when I make it to 21 days, I will indeed have trained and conditioned myself to be more positive. And if testimonials of hundreds of thousands of people on his 21 Day Challenge Website are true, this will have the effect of creating both a greater sense of appreciation and happiness within myself, but also for the people around me.  

If you want to read more about the Challenge, Will Bowen has a website (willbowen.com) and book, A Complaint Free World.  He even sells little purple rubber bracelets you can use as your reminder.  (I don’t look good in purple, so I’m using one of my own bracelets – uh oh, switch wrists?)  If my own experience and what I hear from my friends and people online is any indication, it’s really hard but worthwhile to take the challenge. And if it makes us feel any better, Bowen reports that it takes the average person eight months to make it the 21 days of complaint free living!!

Will Bowen:  “Complaining is like bad breath — you notice it when it comes out of someone else’s mouth, but not when it comes out of your own.”  (Yes, he seems like a character. Not a complaint.)