I would like to talk to you about my life,
my ordinary life and I must admit...
not always sexy!
I'm a mother, I have 3 kids and I work
and in many aspects, my life is probably a lot like yours
I wake up in the morning, I've got a whole day ahead of me.
However, the day has barely even started, I am already chasing after time:
Getting ready, preparing the kids,
and here I am already moaning about the breakfast table or the spilled milk
or about the impossible mission of finding two matching socks for each of my kids.
I can't tell you how many times I found myself sitting in my car,
the kids buckled up in the back, ready to go
and me, looking at the clock and yelling:
There we are! Late again! I told you so!
Once my kids at school,
I could get to work and started working on my endless to-do-list
you know, the more you work on it, the longer it gets...
Sometimes we feel like a hamster in a wheel: spinning and spinning...
but deep down, we perfectly know that we are going nowhere!
But we try...
Oh yes, we try, we try and we try and we try
and then when the others, you know the others who give us more work
the administration, our colleagues, the service providers...
then well, we say they are idiots, incompetents; they don't understand a thing,
that WE would have done things differently,
and frankly, we have much better things to do than deal with this.
Did you know that on average, a person complains between 15 and 30 times a day?
For me, it all begun on a normal evening:
I had just gotten the kids into bed,
you know, after the third glass of water and the need of wee that goes with it,
and after my daughter remembers that I have to sign this very-very-important paper for friday's school trip.
And well, that night, my kids were asleep,
I dragged myself down the hall, threw myself onto my bed and I thought very loudly:
Finally... What a crappy day!
But then, I realized: - Christine, you have a problem!
Because that so-called crappy day of yours,
is just a normal day in your life!
And you're going to have a lot of more days like this, sweetie!
And I thought, no no I don't want to go to bed in that state every nights
I don't want to wait for later... when my kids will be older,
for when I'll be richer, for when I'll get more help, for my next vacations.
I don't want to wait for later to become happy or to get more pleasure out of my everyday life.
Christine, you really need to find a way to stop fighting everything that happens to you.
I thought: one day you're gonna die and realize you spent your whole life complaining about your life!
I had heard about a challenge to stop complaining in 21 days.
I thought, this was exactly what I needed!
As a coach, I knew that 21 days is the length of time you need to get rid of a bad habit
and create a new one!
Specialists of brain research have discovered that habits
are literally connections in our brain
and that with a conscious effort for 21 consecutive days, you create new connections
and ultimately, a new nature!
A new nature!
This is exactly what I wanted!
I was ready to become the woman, the wife, and the mother I always wanted to be!
But for this, I needed to follow through.
So I followed the rules, I have put on a wristband
and each time I complained, I switched sides and started all over.
Objective: keep my wristband on the same side for 21 days.
Well... It took me about 4 months to get to it the end of my challenge.
And today, I'd like to share with you the 5 biggest lessons I have learned out of this adventure.
I learned my first lesson on the very first day of the challenge.
I got up that morning and told myself:
today, no matter what's going to happen, complaining is not an option!
then I got to the kitchen and I realized there was going to be a problem:
despite my good intentions, the things that got me crazy the day before were still here...
And if I wanted to last 21 days,
I'd have to do some cleaning up, else I would never last!
From the 1st day, I understood that stop complaining didn't mean accepting everything.
It didn't mean: Put on rose-tinted glasses and pretend you live in Care Bears' land,
and the things that got me griping yesterday won't affect me today...
No, no, not at all! Actually I remember that day, I went to see my kids and said:
- Girls, mom has made a big decision: I've decided to stop complaining.
And one of them said: - Yeah! It means we can do whatever we want!
I immediately answered: - No, no, this is not what this challenge is all about!
because, if we play by these rules, I won't last 2 days!
I want to hold on for 21 days,
so we are going to have to change some elements of our daily routine.
But I can assure you that it is for the good of the whole family.
Mommy is going to stop flipping out every morning,
and it is gonna do us all some good!
The first lesson I learned is: Stop complaining doesn't mean accepting everything.
You have to take charge of your life and change what you can to make it better.
I also learned the second lesson quite rapidly:
You'll probably see it by yourself if you start the challenge,
and put on the wristband,
the first question that comes is: - Am I complaining right now?
or am I just expressing what is not working for me so that people stop stepping on my toes ?
It is important, stopping complaining doesn't mean accepting everything,
so you have to learn to communicate.
So I came up with 3 criterias to help me identify a rant:
The first one and the most obvious one was: - The tone of my voice.
Am I moaning, brooding over, yelling right now?
The tone of my voice was my first criteria to identify if I was complaining or not.
The second criteria was my positioning.
When I communicate with someone, am I claiming to be the victim?
Am I pointing out the other as the guilty one?
Am I trying to be right and make sure that the other one is wrong?
I realized I loved pointing out the guilty ones!
Yes because obviously, if you are wrong, I am right!
If you are the guilty one then YOU have to come up with the solution to the problem, not me!
So, positioning was my second criteria.
The third one was the accuracy of my words.
Maybe you have already noticed that, when we are complaining
we are so afraid of not to being heard that we exaggerate everything
we turn our problem into a drama.
So we say: It's always the same, I can't take it anymore, it kills me, I asked you a 100 times!
I'm always the one who does everything, nobody ever helps me!
So the accuracy of my words was my third criteria.
So we have: The tone, my positioning and the accuracy of my words
I learned my 3rd lesson from the challenge
when I found myself in the shoes of the one who's complained at.
Picture yourself: I don't know how you would react
but when a person talks to me with a tone of voice that is quite aggressive,
puts me in the place of the guilty one, says I'm wrong and on top of it exaggerate
I don't know about you but I have two types of reaction in these types of situations.
The 1st one, I try to protect myself.
I don't like being told that I'm wrong or guilty so I am going to distance myself,
If I can I will leave the room and explain that I'm not interested in this conversation.
If I can't leave, I'll do everything to cover my ears or create a mental filter,
I'll say to myself: “they're just losing it, they'll get over it...”
But you see, at no point do I really try to listen to the other person's need.
So my first reaction is to protect myself and to distance myself.
The 2nd possible reaction is to defend myself: I will say: it's not true, you're unfair, you're wrong,
and we get into a conflict in which
everyone tries to be right and make sure that the other one is wrong.
This has actually been a real revelation for me!
I realized that often, when I was complaining,
I was actually trying to satisfy a need I had:
a need for order, for help, for respect, for some calm, cooperation, or acknowledgement.
I had this need, and this need was important for me.
But I used a strategy which would only result in someone avoiding me or a conflict.
So why carrying on doing this?
To understand the 4th lesson of this challenge, let's have a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Maslow did this apparently simple but powerful work to categorize a hierarchical list of human needs
He explains that, in order for the superior needs to be fulfilled,
the inferior needs have to be fulfilled first.
At the bottom of the pyramid, the first need of a human being is a physiological one,
we all agree that the first thing we need is water, oxygen and food,
no need to say that you won't really care for your need of accomplishment if you have nothing to drink or to eat
So, the 1st need is physiological.
The 2nd one is about safety.
We need to know that we're not going to die or get attacked by wolves in the middle of the night.
And I think that all of us here would agree that we have those two needs fulfilled. Right?
And the interesting thing, which is going to help me make my point,
is that right after that comes the need of belonging.
We are all human beings who deeply need to be connected to one another.
To understand this, remember the last time you were in an elevator with strangers.
In an elevator, we're physically close to the people around
and we don't know them, they are strangers to us,
and it feels weird, we have this feeling of emptiness like there is something missing.
Have you ever noticed what we do in this situation?
We complain: we will say “what a terrible weather today” or “I can't believe summer is already gone”,
this elevator is too slow”, “I can't wait for the week-end”
Why do we do this? Because it works!
Complaining is a very low-level conversation which doesn't really engage anyone.
It's easy to complain, and furthermore, it's federative!
As soon as someone complains, there is someone to join in, we all gather to complain together,
we're happy, we're all connected, it feels good!
But this challenge got me to think: it's true I need this belonging feeling.
But when I use complaining as a strategy, in elevators, by the coffee machine,
the 1st thing we actually do when arriving at work is usually to moan about the traffic, the undergrounds...
So, when I use complaining to bond with people,
to connect with these people I meet when my day begins
am I creating the type of relationships I really want in my life?
And if I don't want to use complaining to bond with others, then what way can I use instead?
That's what I called Celebration.
How can I "celebrate" in my conversations?
How can I say something nice, or wish a good day,
shared a treasure this day gave me, or something that resonate with me?
How can I change my conversations to change my everyday life
and the relationship I create with the people around me?
This was the 4th lesson I learned from this challenge.
I learned the last lesson a night I came home,
I was tired, I had a very long day at work, with a long meeting...
it was dark, the kids were asleep,
I entered in my kitchen and saw the dinner leftovers and dirty plates on the table.
At this moment, I felt the anger rising inside me
it was so violent that it surprised me!
I asked myself, how something so ordinary could trigger such a disproportionate emotion.
Yes, there are some plates on the table, and you will need to have a discussion
so that it won't happen again, yes, right, you disagree with this.
But why so much hate?
Why such a violent reaction to something ordinary?
Have you noticed how sometime a simple sock on the floor can turn into an identity threat?
Why does it happen?
Because yes, life is made of frustrations,
life is made of responsibilities.
We have to work, earn money,
pay our bills, take care of people,
deal with paperwork,
life's a real challenge!
And sometimes, we let all these demands and responsibilities take over,
so we feel we have no more space just to exist.
That's how I understood that, if I wanted to succeed in my challenge without excessive reactions,
I absolutely had to take on the responsibility of my life,
I had to be the one who brings well-being and pleasure in my everyday life.
Because nobody else would do it for me.
That's how I learned to have the discipline to bring more pleasure into my life.
Not later, when the kids are older, when I have more money or more time.
No, every week!
So I set some time in my agenda,
to go for a walk in nature, lay in the grass
to hug a tree, to meditate or to dance more often.
It was a real gift of life to think that this challenge was not just about changing my communication,
but also a challenge that would allow me to do what makes me happy.
And I now give myself permission to do what I like regularly.
These are the 5 lessons that this challenge taught me
and as for you if you feel inspired to do it just like I did,
you'll go on your own way
and learn your own lessons out of your adventure.
As a conclusion, I'd like to share with you the most beautiful gift I have received out of this challenge.
I have 3 daughters: Anna, Alice and Domitille.
This picture was taken while I was doing the challenge. Anna was 10, Alice 8 and Domitille 4.
You know how everyone says that kids are all different from one another?
Well as for me I had to wait until my second daughter was born to realize that she was nothing like my first
When Alice was born, it was so obvious that this child had a strong need to cuddles!
She was a very cuddling baby, with very busy parents, both entrepreneurs, both loving their jobs,
and sometimes forgetting to stop for a minute.
But Alice always found her way up to our laps at the end of dinner,
or the way to our necks in the staircase,
or managed to crawl into our bed to get the tenderness she needed.
It was so obvious that I often said that her language of love was cuddling!
And I thought Anna is different, Anna is...
I didn't know what Anna was... It wasn't clear at all to me.
Until I started this challenge:
A few days after the beginning, we had spent a nice evening at home,
I was at peace, happy in the moment, I didn't resist my life or daily routine
and I got the kids into bed. Usually, after her younger sisters' wild bedtime routine,
Anna was reasonable and knew to give me a little hug, a kiss and let me go to take my shower and rest.
that night, I went to her bedroom, as I was kissing her goodnight, she grabbed me and asked:
- Mom, could you please stay a while, could you rub my back and talk to me?
That day, I understood. I understood that it took 10 years and a challenge
for Anna to feel that she could fully take her place in the relationship she wanted to have with me!
For Anna to tell me what she really needed.
you see, Anna is my eldest daughter, she's the reasonable one.
She knew that her mother was very busy and that she had no time,
that she was overwhelmed, couldn't do everything, that she had to take care of her sisters...
So Anna chose to step back and leave me do the things I had to.
It took this challenge and 21 days for Anna to feel free to completely step into our relationship
to stop my course and give me the most beautiful gift a mother can receive.
And I'm thanking the challenge for this gift!
Thank you!