So, we realized that complaining is hugely counterproductive to success, and made a pact. We'll toss money into the community kitty every time we do one of the "finable offenses" for the week. On Saturday, we go out to eat with the cash. So, whoever is complaining and being negative more is paying out more.
My goal with this is less oriented around the money and more oriented around habit change. I did it with Stepan. He wanted to set the price per offense at 10 RMB; I wanted 20 RMB since I thought 10 wouldn't be enough to push behavior as fast. So, mine's at 20 RMB per offense ($3.17 per offense) and his at 10 RMB. Progressive taxation, eh?
Here's the rules --
List of payable offenses:
*Criticizing people
*Agitated speech
*Agitated gestures
*Putting the world down
*Putting other people down
*Putting self down
*Judging before understanding
*Sighing
*Passive-aggressiveness
*Beating down on self without a constructive action
*Swearing or vulgarity
--> [artistic exemption, particularly for writing, speeches, and negotiations; the committee decides]
*Making excuses
*Justifying and rationalizing
*Unsubstantiated writing-off without specifying key issue: EX: "Whacky" should be "Overly eccentric and not focused on their needs," "Silly", etc.
--> Artistic exemption here too, for sending to the committee.
*Negative anticipation: "This is going to be hard," "This isn't likely to work," "This is going to be stressful," "I'm going to be worn out afterwards," -- etc. Can be realistic while still positive anticipating. EX: "This is going to be worth it, so we're going to do it."
*"Need" and "Should" -- replace with "I want to…" or "I choose to…" or "I'd prefer to…" or "The consequences…"
*Schadenfreude, cruelty, etc.
A note at the bottom of the page --
Complaining is masochism.
...and I think it is. Complaining, or negativity at all... it hurts you, and kind of sort of feels good. It's masochistic -- and we're cutting it out. And winning more.
Feel free to join in with your own version. I'm already out 180 RMB in the first 3 hours. And it feels great.