I listened to a great podcast this week by Michael Hyatt. He shared about an experience he had recently at a conference. He saw an old friend who complained about incompetent people in his life the entire time they visited. Michael finally ended the conversation and moved on after trying unsuccessfully to change the subject. He pointed out that he didn’t want to listen to this friend’s complaining. He said it didn’t make him feel bad about the people the man talked about, but it made the friend himself look bad.

Michael’s podcast gave four ways that complaining hurts the complainer:

1. “It trains your brain.” When your brain is trained to look for fault, that is what it will see. He used as an example when you decide to buy a particular car, you begin to see that type car everywhere. “You get more of what you notice.”

2. “It makes you miserable.” When you dwell on the negative, you become dissatisfied and unhappy. This negativity is contagious.

3. You miss opportunities because people avoid you. He says that healthy people don’t want to be around a complainer. This means the complainer will be deprived of the company of people who could positively impact their life.

4. “People don’t trust you.” When you complain about people all the time, the people you complain to begin to wonder what you say about them when they are not around. Eventually people will no longer want to share with you at all.

Take inventory of your behavior and if you discover that you are complaining a lot, make a concerted effort to stop right away. Begin immediately to look for the good in everyone and every situation so that you can truly live your fullest life.