image found at gracewalk.wordpress.com

A good blog is like a good book. Sometimes you want to go back and revisit posts that meant something to you. One such post by Tim Ferriss has been rattling around in my head A LOT lately. This post was called Real Mind Control: The 21 Day No-Complaint Experiment. In the post, Tim told us of Will Bowen, a Kansas City minister who decided to try an experiment. He would wear a purple bracelet to remind him not to complain for 21 days. If he did complain, he would switch his bracelet to the other wrist and start over at day 1. This is because scientists say that it takes 21 days to form a habit. If you don’t complain for 21 days straight, you’ve just formed a habit of not complaining!

There is now a great website started by Will Bowen called acomplaintfreeworld.org. There, you can order the purple bracelet, Will Bowen’s book and DVD, and even download a widget for your computer that will count the days for you. If you complain, you have to click ‘Start Over’.

Why would you want to do this?

I don’t know why you would want to do this, but I’ll tell you why I am going to do this, and why it took me this long to realize I should.

Reason #1

I’ve related in earlier posts how I may not be as happy with some aspects of my life as I could be. Sure, I have a wonderful family and my health, but I want more for my family and for myself. I find it too easy, however, to complain, or better yet, make excuses for why things don’t go as planned. That is why the title of this post includes ‘No Excuses’. More on that in a bit…

Reason #2

Complaining gets everyone down. Working in the retail industry, I can’t tell you how many times someone has commented on how they couldn’t do my job if they had to deal with the irate customers. I used to think the same way. What I do is think about what I would like to hear if I was upset. How does that fit in to what I can actually do?

So the no complaining piece is this: of course you identify the problems, but instead of seeing them as problems, make them in to opportunities to grow and improve the situation. Instead of just writing a situation off as something to complain about, isn’t there something you can do to improve or even remedy the situation? And if not, why sweat it? It’s out of your hands! Yelling at the Republican or Democrat on the television screen is just raising your blood pressure. The politician still sleeps at night, and won’t change his/her tune for you!

Why did it take me so long to decide to do this?

The answer is remarkably simple: Complaining is easy. There’s a certain release to cursing something that doesn’t go right. It releases you from the hassle of actually doing something about it. If you can blame something else, you’re not the responsible party, right? WRONG! If you don’t learn from those mistakes or incidents, you’ll just have more and more to complain about later on…

My dad always says that when you point a finger at someone (or something) three fingers are pointing back at you. This is why No Excuses is part of my 21 day experiment. If I’m not happy with something in my life, instead of making excuses (“It’s the economy!” “It’s the weather!” “I’m just following orders!”), I’ll find solutions and a way to take advantage of the opportunities.

I would like to invite you all to join me in this experiment. You don’t have to buy the bracelet, just throw a rubber band on your wrist, or download the widget like I did. The point is to stop complaining. And stop making excuses!

I will, of course, be blogging my progress, and in the name of honest blogging, will blog my failures as well.

If you are joining me in this experiment, please, let me know below. I will also start a discussion on my Facebook fan page, so you can chart your progress there as well!

Good luck!

image from squidoo.com

OK, so maybe this post is a little late. As you continue to read, you’ll understand why…

Happy 2010!!! You geeks out there that read this blog know that this is ‘The Year We Make Contact‘!!! Start striking your timpani drums now! So, my first resolution this year is to make friends with some Russians and go to Jupiter to look for monoliths…

All geeking out aside, I have been taking a lot of time to reflect on where I am as a husband, father, employee, and of course, Daddy Blogger. Since you are reading my blog, I am going to focus first on what I will be doing here going forward in this brand-spanking new year, and why you should keep reading!

Howefitz Blog New Year Resolutions and Hopes For The Future

• Deliver more quality content, maybe less quantity
  • Last year, I set a goal of blogging every other day. I failed. Of course, the reason for that is that I have a real full time job and a family. Some days sleep seems appropriate, and then it’s time to work or take care of the family. So I’m going easy on myself this year:
  • Generally, it seems I get about an hour in the morning to blog. This has resulted in a few rushed, phoned-in entries. So going forward, I am going to try to seek out better information, and really think through what I’m writing. I know a lot of my regular readers have become like friends, and for that I am eternally grateful. But I would still like to see this base grow, and to do that I need to take the time to research and do my best to provide quality content. Therefore, I may not blog but once, maybe twice, a week. Of course, these will still include funny anecdotes from my wife and children, but there will also be genuinely helpful (I hope) articles that others can find interesting beyond my friends and family.
• What About ‘Kids Play On The Net’?
  • My ‘weekly’ column, ‘Kids Play On The Net‘ over at Dad-Blogs will continue, probably in the same sporadic rhythm as last year, but you have my solemn oath that when I post there, it will continue to be about websites and online resources that I genuinely use on a regular basis and I hope you will find them helpful as well.

Beyond my hopes for creating a more resourceful, thoughtful, useful blog, I have personal goals as well:

• The Ever Popular ‘I’m Going to Lose Weight’
  • Our big family gift for Christmas this year was a Wii, with a Wii Fit. The first body test I took with it called me obese. A little voice said (Out loud!) ‘That’s obese!’ And my Mii character looked down at it’s ballooning form as if I had cursed it to a life of unhealthy plumpness. So, I will definitely start really watching what I eat. I considered going back to Tim Ferriss‘s ‘Slow Carb Diet‘, but I’m easily bored, so I will settle for avoiding ‘white foods’ and extra snacks. But the one day of eating anything I want? I could still get behind that!
  • And of course, I’ll be exercising with my Nintendo. (Welcome to the future. Oh the times, they are a-changin’!)
• Heaven Help Me, I Will Get Promoted
  • This past year I did a lot of complaining here, at work, and at home, about my job. The past several years I’ve felt like I’ve slipped and lost hold of something that I used to be very good at. I’ve heard a lot of complaining from others as well, and my response is always the same: ‘I hear a lot of problems, but not too many solutions’. A quick glance in the mirror made me realize what a hypocrite I was being. Here I was complaining and not solving anything myself! So, in this bright new year, if I find myself wanting to complain, I’m going to redirect that energy into finding and implementing solutions. And then if someone happens to notice what an improved manager I’ve become and thinks I should be doing more…

• Be A Better Father
  • Living in the Rocky Mountains is tough in the winter time. I feel like my kids don’t get a lot of varied experience due to being inside all the time. However, I am making a vow to get out to more story times at the library, visit the children’s museum more, and, of course, teach them the proper way to have a snowball fight (if I can ever get the stuff up here to pack well enough…).
• Be A Better Husband
  • Having kids, it’s easy to neglect the marriage. Your spouse is relegated to an extra pair of arms and hands to get things done, and an extra set of eyes to watch the kids and make sure one isn’t beaming the other in the head with a Linky-Doo.
  • This year, I’m going to make sure I pay attention to adding more romance into my marriage. After all, that’s how this whole family business got started in the first place…

How about yourselves? Any plans for 2010? 2009 was a good year, 2010 will be great!!!

Today, I watched this video on johnchow.com:

Wow, this video makes a compelling case that “I’m drinking a cup of coffee.” Is something people might actually want to know!

Hmmm….

There’s only one conclusion.

If you want to tweet about your online business, do it.

If you want to share information you think is valuable, by all means.

If you want to tweet that you just let loose the juiciest fart of your life, absolutely, why not?

But…

I don’t have to read it.

Here’s the thing: I’ve seen a lot of people that don’t like Twitter because they think it’s a fat wad of wasted time. That’s cool. But, it is possible to use Twitter effectively. 

Tim Ferriss uses Twitter to post information, alert readers of his latest blog entries, etc. At the time of this writing, he has 13,605 followers. How many people does he follow? Zero. I’ve seen blogs that say this means he must be a spammer. This is absolutely not true. He’s using Twitter very effectively to spread information that he feels is important. But, he has different avenues of research, etc. so he doesn’t even want to wade through the endless tweets to find information.

Myself, not being a respected, published author who is perfectly at ease hanging out with CEO-types all day, I use Twitter and Tweetdeck to ask for/ferret out information. I find this useful, so I have cut down on my “I just blew my nose” tweets, and instead, post my latest blog entries, link to favorite sites, news stories, etc. Usually, if I can’t attach a link, I don’t tweet.

I suppose the point of all this is that social media is what we make of it. I don’t tweet unless I can provide a link because that is the aspect that I enjoy. There’s not much you can say in 140 characters or less. You can, however, say just enough to entice readers to click on that link.

AND

If you find yourself following someone who incessantly tweets that they love pie, you can simply unfollow them.

Welcome to 21st century friendship!  ;p

You can find more useful videos like this one at commoncraft.com