My attention towards making things happen instead of complaining they don’t exist has been present for a long time in my life. It is said that where others see problems, entrepreneurs see opportunities.
Once, in a book I read, I learned about an exercise inviting the reader to have a day with positive thoughts only. I took it as a challenge and I added an extra layer on top. I decided to pay attention to my thoughts of complaining and dissatisfaction over a day and for each of them I would put 10 Romanian lei (about 2 euros) in a jar and donate them afterwards.
The first day ended with 27 identified negative thoughts. With my competitive spirit, I knew I could do better. The next day I planned to be more aware of the negative thoughts and played the game again. This time I only noticed 11 negative thoughts. Good. I loved the progress including the part with the 380 lei I committed to donate.
My insight was a strong one related to the power of habit. The more I was intentional about decreasing the complaints in my life, the less I complained, and the more energy I had for things I loved to do.
While I was working for Amazon in London, I had a colleague who started her role one week after I did. When only the two of us were together, she would start to complain about different aspects of our job, such as tough negotiations or changing reporting documents. I would take it from there and add my own complaints. Time passed by and our moments together existed under a cloud of unhappiness or dissatisfaction. Until one day.
I came to the office and told her I wanted to stop that chain of negative thinking. I suggested dedicating only one minute a day for complaining and the rest of the time to focus on what we enjoyed about our work. I have to admit that some days we had more than one session of complaining , but the quality of our mood at work improved significantly. I am not sure if it directly helped, but we also became good friends.
Many years ago, I realized I would love to join more live music events in informal settings where people could socialize during the breaks. At the time, I didn’t know of any in Bucharest. I saw an opportunity in this. I realized the piano I had at home was an unused resource compared to its potential, soI started to organize some live music evenings at my place. My piano teacher and other friends played the piano, (I was a beginner, which I still am today, and did not want to include first grade songs in the program). I remember one evening when I hosted more than 20 people, I opened the doors of my terrace and some of my guests were sitting in the garden or the terrace. I had announced to my neighbours about the event, hoping we would not carry on too late and we would not disturb them. At the end of the performance, not only my guests clapped their hands, but the neighbours too, asking me when we could have the next event.
Then, in 2019, the well known story of Community Dinners happened. When I decided to move back from London to Romania, I felt I would miss the abundance of interesting people I was surrounded by. However, I was also sure there were many interesting people in Bucharest as well, who shared similar values. I had the idea to invite them over for dinner in a structured environment that would create the space to share learnings, ideas, and meaningful conversations. Three years later, I organized more than 40 facilitated dinners and we gathered in a community with more than 70 like-minded and inspirational people.
So, it became a habit for me to take action in a situation that is not ideal instead of complaining about it. One of the things that keeps coming up with my coaching clients is that we cannot complain about things if we do nothing to change them. Furthermore, I find complaining a bad use of my time and energy, that keeps me away from focusing on creating and building things that can bring me joy.
Where focus goes, energy flows.
There is a very good commercial in Romania now joking about the mindset that all the bad things happen in traffic because we lack good infrastructure.
Instead of complaining about things we can or cannot change, like infrastructure, how can we create better experiences and a better environment for all of us?
This is the thought I wish we could all have in mind for the beginning of the next year: to create and multiply good vibes environments, meaningful conversations, happy moments and love.