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My wife and I have embarked on a 21-day complaint free marriage experiment. I was first introduced to this idea on Tim Ferriss’ blog. In fact, there is a huge movement towards a complaint free world, almost 5 million bracelets distributed worldwide.
The idea is simple; go 21 days in a row without complaining. Sounds easy, right?
Nope!
After only 2 days, we both had already started over twice. And I consider myself to be a pretty optimistic person. I found out there is still work to be done.
This whole thing was started by Will Bowen, a Kansas City minister, who recognized there was far too much complaining in the world. He proposes that word choice determines thought choice, which determines emotions and actions. If you can eliminate complaining, you will experience more happiness.
Will’s designed one possible solution: wear a purple bracelet (actually anything will do, I have been using a rubber band), go 21 days in a row without complaining, gossiping, or criticizing. If you mess up, that’s ok, switch the bracelet to the other arm and start again at day 1.
So what exactly is a complaint?
My wife and I have already had many discussions on the subject. Here’s what we have come up with thus far. Any negative description of an event, person, or issue. Gossiping is pretty easy to define. As is criticizi
Corey is the editor of Simple Marriage as well as a licensed marriage & family therapist. While he has a Ph.D. in Family Therapy, he only occasionally likes to be called doctor. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe so you don't miss any future posts.No related posts.
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Great idea. I can see where it would improve your outlook on things to not complain. I have to admit, I complained a lot last night when I was running to the toilet with my hand over my mouth.
I’ve been playing around with your SMC forum. It will be a fun thing to do.
I am going to try this with my daughter. If she’s not game I’ll do it on my own. At the very least, it will help me become MORE CONSCIOUS of what comes out of my mouth. Thanks.
I gave this a shot too back when I saw it on Tim Ferriss’ blog, I think I lasted about 4 hours. Sometimes I feel mutual complaining actually strengthens my marriage, as long as we’re complaining about the state of the world and not each other
But I agree, complaining is rarely – if ever – productive. Time to give the complaint diet another try.
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