Rewriting Complaints

3/17/2026

So, my bad week has turned into a few bad weeks. But who am I to complain? I’m sure lots of you out there have it worse than me. Aaaand that’s what we’ll talk about today. Complaining about your life.

Let’s face it. We are all guilty of complaining about our lives at some point. Work sucks! School sucks! I’m tired! My feet hurt! Complaint after complaint. And what does it do for you?… A big fat NOTHING! Yeah. Life’s tough. But complaining never got anyone anywhere. So, what do we do instead of complaining about something? Easy. Either do something about the complaint or do something that makes the complaint feel minimal in your life. In other words, rewrite the complaint.

 So instead of just thinking work sucks, think of all the reasons why you feel work sucks. I know this sounds counterintuitive but trust me here. This is your first step to rewriting a complaint. You have to know the what and why in order to turn things around. Really get to understanding why you think work sucks so much. Next: edit. Edit this list of negative things by counterbalancing it with a list of positive things. Why does work not suck. There has to be a reason you are staying in that job. Maybe it’s the money or the work friend. Heck, maybe it’s that cute boss of yours. No one’s judging this list but you.

Now comes a writing challenge. Challenge yourself to write more positive things about work than negative ones. Soon you’ll be thinking “Huh, work isn’t so bad after all.” Now you are almost finished rewriting the complaint. Give yourself a small treat. Something you really like, or rarely have in your life and as you treat yourself, repeat that rewritten phrase.

So, that’s doing something about the complaint. Now let’s talk about making the complaint feel minimal in your life. This is simple. Just do something that makes you feel good about yourself. Work sucks, but I gave a homeless guy 5 dollars today and saw him smile. Work sucks, but I love volunteering at the local animal shelter. Work sucks, but I just finished up a ton of paperwork today and that’s less to do tomorrow. It’s almost like giving yourself a little pat on the back. And thinking it right after a complaint causes your mind to correlate your complaint with the pat on the back, causing a natural rewrite in your brain. So, instead of constantly correlating work with sucking, you are constantly correlating work with a little pat on the back.