Welcome to the 40 Day LoveFest, the Sunday night inspiration show. I’m Tina Nies, your host, and welcome! If you’re a first time listener, this is the 40 Day LoveFest show. Tonight’s topic is going to be turning complaints into compliments, which also comes from our new book the 40 Day LoveFest for Christians. You can get information on our book at 40DayLoveFestForChristians.com. One of the love activities is talking about no complaining, and we’re going to talk about that challenge tonight. If you are new to the show, the 40 Day LoveFest is a daily practice of self-love, in a way that you can truly learn to be happier today.
The 40 Day LoveFest practice is a really simple practice with three main parts, and I’ll share those with you in just a moment. But some of you may be wondering, “why do I want to practice loving myself?” or “isn’t that a little weird? Why shouldn’t I be practicing loving other people?”, and I want to suggest that you really want to love yourself first, because if you love yourself first, you’re going to have a lot more love to give to others, you’re going to attract more love into your life, you’re going to just feel better about yourself. When you feel better about yourself, other people will feel better about you as well. It’s really something that can benefit all parts of your life. Thank you, again, for joining us. Now let’s talk about what exactly the 40 Day LoveFest is.
The first step is to simply say “I love you” to yourself. You can look in the mirror and say that to yourself. Right now, if you’re listening to this show, you can take a moment to find a mirror, and say “I love you” to yourself. It’s pretty simple. We look in the mirror multiple times a day, and it’s pretty simple to just add that in. It might sound a little silly. If you’ve never done this before, the first time you do it, it will feel a little bit silly, but that’s okay, you can say it anyway. The next time when you say it again, it will feel a little bit better, and by day 40 it will become so natural that every day, every time you look in the mirror, you say something nice to yourself and say “I love you” to yourself.
The next two steps of the 40 Day LoveFest practice is to acknowledge things you’re grateful for, and acknowledge things that went well, each day. I suggest in the morning you do the gratitude because why not start your day on a great note? Think about three things you’re grateful for in your life. In the morning, it’s really best to think of three things you’re grateful for, and you just start your day off on a really great note. They don’t have to be big things, they can be little things. Maybe you’re grateful for the sunshine, maybe you’re grateful that you woke up…it can be any three things you’re grateful for. Again, that might sound easy, but when you do that every single day for 40 days, it becomes a little bit more challenging. You’ve got to really dig in. What are you really grateful for in your life?
Then, the other step in the 40 Day LoveFest is acknowledging three things that went well. I suggest you do this at the end of the day. Before you go to bed, on your way home from work, or at dinner, whenever is comfortable. Think about three things that went well. Again, they don’t have to be big things, they can be little things. Maybe you got to work on time if you’re sometimes running late. Maybe you called a friend who was on your mind because you just did it. Any little thing that went well that day, you can recognize.
The 40 Day LoveFest practice of self-love consists of three things…saying “I love you” to yourself, acknowledging three things you’re grateful for every single day, and acknowledging three things that went well every single day. That’s it! In the 40 Day LoveFest for Christians, our first book in what will be a large series, we share those practices, and get a little more in-depth about how I developed those practices, as well as other things and tools you can use to improve your life and self-love.
One of those tools, which I mentioned earlier, “the no-complain challenge”. That one is a great one because we all might think about things that we are complaining about. Even if we think we are pretty positive, if you really take count, for maybe the next hour, think about how many times you might come up with little complaints. The kids are playing the music too loud, the traffic is going too slow, the internet is not working. Even those little complaints that we make is really a habit that most of us have of complaining. What I would suggest is that you take the challenge to not complain for at least 24 hours. So from right now, whenever you’re listening to this call, just don’t complain for 24 hours. I really recommend that after that first 24 hours, you do it for another 7 days, but for at least 24 hours. When you find yourself about to complain, or a complaint actually comes out of your mouth, you can turn it into a compliment. For example, if traffic is going really slow and you’re complaining, change it into a compliment by saying, “wow, I never noticed those really pretty flowers over by the side of the road” or “that is a really cool house” or “oh, the library is right there!”. Take notice of something in your surroundings. You’re stuck in traffic anyway, you might as well take a look around and turn it into a compliment. If your internet is going really slow, instead of complaining and pushing the buttons, you can think, “well, I guess I can take a break from the computer for a minute”. Maybe it’s a message too. You’ve been sitting at your computer for two or three hours, it’s time to get up, walk around, come back to the computer and it will probably be working fine. So, you can turn those complaints into compliments.
For 24 hours, I want you to try not complaining. It will be tough for a lot of us. It’s tough for me sometimes. Sometimes I put some kind of reminder in place for myself, like wearing a rubber band on my wrist, and when I complain, I’ll snap it as a little reminder. Now, not everyone likes to do those little punishment tools, but for me, it works. I don’t really think of it as a punishment, so much as awareness. I am aware of it, rather than just letting it go and becoming such an engrained habit. You can create little reminders for yourself. If you have kids, or a spouse, what’s REALLY great during “the no-complain challenge” is to create some kind of rule. Especially if you have kids, maybe it will be a quarter. Any time someone complains, whoever it is has to put a quarter in the jar, then that money can be saved for donating to charity, a treat for the family, or whatever you want it to be. You can create a little challenge and make it fun. What that does is raise your conscious awareness about words that come out of your mouth, because if we’re complaining about other things in our life, then we’re probably also complaining about things in our own personal life as well. We may complain when we do something that we mess up on, so it can become a habit that’s not very loving.
By taking “the no-complaint challenge”, you’re going to increase your self-love because when you’re not complaining about other things, you’ll also stop complaining about things you do on your own. So, I challenge you for the next 24 hours, then an additional week because you’ll find it really wasn’t that bad to do – no complaining. Turn your complaints into compliments and really have a little bit of fun with it. Also be sure to check out 40DayLoveFestForChristians.com. There are some really great bonuses when you buy the book. It’s available in paperback with a journal that you can actually write in and keep track of everything. It’s also available on Kindle. If you’re a Kindle Prime member, you can even borrow the book for free in the lending library. Be sure to check out 40DayLoveFestForChristians.com, and join us again next Sunday night. I’m sorry we weren’t able to take live calls tonight, but next Sunday night we will, so if you want to share how your 40 Day LoveFest “no-complaint challenge” is going, give me a call next Sunday night and tell me how that went. You can also go to our blog. If you’re on the website, there will be a link that says “blog”, click it and you can share some comments about how your “no-complaint challenge” went.
Thank you, and have a beautiful night!
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