Can Giving Up Complaining Actually Make You Happier?
What happens to your brain when you stop focusing on the negative
I decided to give up complaining for Lent—even if it’s about the weather. When a complaint begins to surface in my brain, I’m reminded to check myself. It’s been two weeks, and I’ve already noticed a difference in my mindset.
I’m feeling happier and more content. I like this new mind!
When Thoughts Become Life
Your thoughts become your actions, and those actions become your life. Thank you for these profound words, Gandhi.
"Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny."
― Mahatma Gandhi
As I get older, I realize the importance of keeping an open mind. I don't want to become someone whose life stays the same simply because I'm too set in my ways. Hell, that would be boring!
With a rigid mindset, your life never changes for the better. Sure, I have my core values—they shape my opinions and give structure to my life—but that doesn't mean I’m not open to new things. Strong values mean I have a clear foundation of who I am and what I believe. I can build on this foundation—and even change some building parts if needed—but the foundation remains key.
The idea of deliberately changing my mindset to see what would happen if I stopped complaining, even about minor things, led me to the topic of habits—how we form and break them. I became curious about the psychology and time frames behind making and breaking habits.
Small Changes Yield Profound Results
If you haven’t read Atomic Habits by James Clear yet, I highly recommend his inspiring words.
WHY SMALL HABITS MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE
It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, writing a book, winning a championship, or achieving any other goal, we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.
Meanwhile, improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable— sometimes it isn’t even noticeable—but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.
James Clear, Atomic Habits
This is precisely why the one day at a time or just for today philosophy works so well. One small daily habit transforms into profound changes when repeated over 365 days. Small habits don’t seem like much, but over time they are significant.
Clear advises, “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
As Clear explains,
Negative thoughts compound. The more you think of yourself as worthless, stupid, or ugly, the more you condition yourself to interpret life that way. You get trapped in a thought loop. 1
Negative thoughts are just as habit-forming as positive thoughts, so why not focus on the positive? You win a little bit each day when you stay on the positive trajectory you’ve set for yourself.
Habits formed to achieve a specific goal, such as stopping complaining, are most successful when accompanied by a positive emotional response, like happiness, and when supported by a system, such as the 40 days of Lent.
What Does The Research Say?
The 21/40-Day Rule in spiritual, psychological, and behavioral practices is based on the notion that it takes at least 21 days to break an old habit and 40 days to establish a new, lasting behavioral or thought pattern.
This principle is rooted in the scientific understanding of neuroplasticity along with the various religious and spiritual traditions emphasizing 40-day transformation periods. Realistically, the time it takes to form a new habit and establish new neural pathways varies depending on the complexity of the change.
It is commonly believed it takes 21 days to form a habit. This likely originates from a misinterpretation of Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s work in the 1960s. Dr. Maxwell observed that adjusting to physical changes took patients at least 21 days.
Contrary to the widely held belief that habits can form within 21 days, our research indicates that habit formation typically requires a duration of 2 to 5 months for most health behaviours to become automatic. This insight is critical, as it sets more realistic expectations for individuals attempting lifestyle changes. 2
Current thinking is that a behavior takes an average of 66 days to become automatic. A 2009 study by Dr. Phillippa Lally and her team at University College London found that the range varied between 18 and 254 days, depending on the complexity of the habit and the person’s consistency.3
The brain starts rewiring when you interrupt old patterns and introduce new ones. While full habit automation can take longer (66+ days on average), 40 days are enough to create significant neural shifts and make the new behavior feel more natural.
Most detox programs are 30 days because although it only takes about a week to purge nicotine or alcohol from your body physically, it typically takes at least a month to cleanse these substances from your habit-driven mind—and even longer to rewire your life with healthier routines.
Remaining alcohol or nicotine-free for an entire year significantly boosts your chances of establishing strong, lasting neural pathways. While the old pathways never disappear entirely, they become subdued and overshadowed by newer, healthier connections. Reinforcing and nurturing these new neural pathways through supportive emotional cues is essential to making them permanent.
In contrast, tackling simpler habits—like curbing complaining—can be comparatively straightforward. You can pause, notice, and consciously reframe your mindset when a complaining thought arises.
Establishing a structure is key to reaching your goal. The goal is the new habit, and the structure is the system used to achieve your goal.
Lent offers a structured opportunity to cultivate these positive cues. The effectiveness of many religious and spiritual traditions isn't rooted solely in dogma but rather in the practical frameworks they provide. It’s fitting—and certainly intentional—that Lent culminates in Easter, a powerful and positive universal symbol of renewal, rebirth, and hope.
References
Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: An easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones. Avery.
Singh, B., Murphy, A., Maher, C., & Smith, A. E. (2024). Time to Form a Habit: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Health Behaviour Habit Formation and Its Determinants. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 12(23), 2488. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12232488
Gardner, B., Lally, P., & Wardle, J. (2012). Making health habitual: the psychology of 'habit-formation' and general practice. The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 62(605), 664–666. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp12X659466
Thank you for this article. In my own personal experience, I have seen that negative thoughts are even more addictive because of the anxiety that they create. They do more damage than we realize.
it's a good reminder...1% change can lead to nuclear results! thanks!