Trading on Target: How to Cultivate a Winner's State of Mind

THE HIGH COST OF COMPLAINING

One of the costs of complaining is that people do not want to be around you. Among the many reasons for this fact are:

• It is tedious to listen to someone complaining. (Unspoken Response: Who wants to be bored?)
• Complaining brings down the emotional temperature of a social gathering. (Unspoken Response: Who wants to have a bad time just when you were having such a good one?)
• Complainers seem weak and powerless. (Unspoken Response: Who wants to be around someone like that?)
• Complaints remind everyone else about a problem they are trying to solve on their own or avoid, if possible. (Unspoken Response: Who wants to be anxious all over again?)
• Complainers appear to be pessimistic, with the underlying assumption that things are always bad and hopeless. (Unspoken Response: Who needs that message?)
• Complainers sometimes appear to have a hidden agenda, which is that they are actually asking the listener to take responsibility for fixing the problem. Or worse, they are actually blaming the listener for the problem. (Unspoken Response: Why would I want to fix your problem or take the blame for it? Get lost!)

Thus, you can measure the first cost of complaining by all of the people who do not want to spend time with you, listen to you, work with you, or depend upon you. The second great cost of complaining is the loss of your own self-esteem. If you are a chronic complainer, you have relinquished the sense of personal power that comes with taking responsibility ...