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To say that the past seven days have been an eye opener would be an under statement. I really enjoyed going without gossiping. In my previous posts I mentioned that it was becoming easier to stay without gossiping. In the past few days I’ve noticed the opposite.

Up until day 4 of this challenge I was feeling very good through out the day and felt annoyed if someone wanted to get me involved in any kind of gossip. On days 5, 6 and 7 I felt inclined to gossip. It was like this strong force urging me to go ahead and gossip. It’s like an addiction! If you are trying to give up chocolate for instance, sometimes all you want is a little piece, that’s all!

I think it might be due to getting frustrated with work and certain people. Also, gossip around me was going overwhelming and it would have taken me back into the vicious circle if I hadn’t relied heavily on my will power. It took a lot of discipline to stay on course but I really enjoyed it. Like trying to give up smoking and still going out for smoke breaks with your smoke buddies. It makes it just a little bit more challenging.

Overall I think this habit is a keeper. I am going to go ahead and adopt this habit. It feels wonderful to live without criticizing and bad mouthing people. Even before I wasn’t that bad but still this is the better me.

Another side benefit of this challenge is that I have started to treat people differently. If someone on another team makes a mistake, instead of criticizing and complaining, now I understand that they’re humans after all and mistakes happen. Then I just move on. No whining, no complaining, no gossiping!

Keeping everything organized is one of the most important habits that everyone should develop.  For example if you have your receipts organized you won’t have to stress much when it comes time to do your taxes.  This is especially important if you are a business owner and can write off a lot of your expenses against your income.

Even if you are not collecting your receipts for the purpose of reducing your taxable income you can still benefit greatly by keeping them organized.  Reason being, it helps to know where you are spending your money so you can make wiser financial choices.  It is one of the first rules of money management.  Whenever you go see a financial adviser, they would want you to keep track of your expenses and based on that would devise your future financial plan.

Here is what I found to be extremely helpful.  By my bedside I have a big yellow envelope and it’s named march 2008.  Every night I put all my receipts for the month of march in it after I write them down in my notebook or computer.  Every month I get a new envelope for that month and put all my receipts in that envelope.  I have tried to keep the envelopes in a nicer and safer place but I found that that just deterred me from putting my receipts in it.  I would always procrastinate putting receipts in that envelope until a few months worth of receipts piled up by my bedside.  So, one day I just decided to keep the monthly envelope by my bedside and it’s worked like a charm ever since.  At the end of the month this envelope gets sealed while a new one opens up.

And I got these envelopes from the dollar store.  I believe 10 envelopes for $1.00 + tax = $1.13 or so. Not too bad of an investment.  And it keeps my accountant happy  as well.

Prior to doing any sort of organizing for my receipts I used to keep them in a plastic bag.  Plan being that I would just sit down one day and copy everything to an excel sheet instead of wasting time every single day.  Well, that doesn’t work!  It is an overwhelming task when you have to do it and not to mention that the ink on a lot of the receipts got erased.

So, try it out and I am sure you will like it.

Before starting this challenge I really thought it was going to be very tough to not gossip. Especially considering how casually everyone seem to gossip. The first day or two seemed hard but now the opposite is happening.

I am finding that I do not like talking about people behind their back. I am happier now that I do not indulge in occasional gossip. Whenever I catch myself slipping into the same pattern I gently bring myself back without much effort. I really enjoy speaking positively about people.

I had several occasions today and yesterday where some people really frustrated me. It is those times that I usually go to my friends and complain and grumble about these people. Even though I was frustrated but the thought of speaking ill of these people started to depress me even more. So, I did not tell anyone about it and just carried on and with in a short while I was in pleasant mood again. Not only that, I actually felt even better knowing that I did not let this affect me. When someone makes you angry, they have control over you so this way I maintained control.

It is hard to explain but it feels awesome not gossiping. If others gossip, I gently nod without contributing. If I can, I put in a positive word here or there. “I can understand, they’re under a lot of stress.. it’s ok” and so on. I am not just saying these things, I actually feel them.

All in all this challenge is teaching me a lot. Life is a joy without talking about people behind their back! You feel a lot happier through out the day. When you speak positively about others, it in turn affects your self esteem. You tend to stop doubting yourself and start seeing positive aspects in yourself as well.

Going through out the whole day without speaking ill of anyone is quite an ordeal. You have to make a conscious effort to not gossip. It is quite amazing because that is the way we should be anyhow.

We should not be gossiping! At least that’s what I feel. Today and yesterday I had several close calls. I have realized that it doesn’t matter if I can go without gossiping in a certain environment. If I see different people in a totally different environment, my automatic habits on how to act with those people kick in. So, if you are used to gossiping a lot with a certain group of people and you only see them once in a while, you may be inclined to gossip as soon as you see them.

During the weekend I saw friends and family that I normally don’t see during the week. A lot of the times we just casually talk about others. This time same thing was about to happen. So easily we were drifting into the same pattern of gossiping. This time though, as soon as I realized I diverted the conversation to some other topics. Never realized that I could spend so much time with my friends without actually talking about anyone else, well at least not speaking ill of anyone else. There were in fact a lot of other interesting things to talk about and I really enjoyed my conversations.

I have been feeling a lot lighter for the past few days as well, ever since I stopped gossiping. There are a lot more positive feelings that I am experiencing and I am loving it.

Not to gossip for the whole day turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I think the hardest part was actually remembering my goal. We had a lot of good gossiping sessions today and there were so many times that I really wanted to join in.

I had so much to contribute to the gossip, so many juicy details but I kept quiet. Whenever my turn to respond came, I said “un-huh”, or just smiled, or laughed but kept my mouth shut. That’s when your will power and discipline comes in handy.
When I consciously made an effort to not gossip was when I realized how easily we gossip.

Casually and easily one can slip into talking about others and it just seems natural to do that. That’s why today it seemed unnatural for me to keep quiet. Many times I was frustrated with others and wanted to complain, not even with everyone but just my friends but I still kept quiet. I tried to find some loop hole in my intent to not gossip today.

All in all, at the end of the day I feel really good. I actually did not say one bad thing about anyone the whole day. I did not even complain about anyone. Every time I felt myself inclined to say something negative, right away I turned that into a positive and moved on.

Whenever I want to experience how a certain goal feels like, I would stay with that for at least 30 days. There are times when I have doubts that I could even complete the whole 30 days. At those times instead of feeling like a failure and giving up I break the goal down so small that it does not feel like I am stretching myself too much. Once I have that under my belt I have a much better idea about my goal. This is when I can slowly increase the intensity.

Remember weight training? If you feel like you can not go to the gym regularly for the whole month, just go for one day and even then maybe just go and come back. Next day, stay there for maybe 5 minutes and next day a little more and so on. Whole point is to know what you want and move towards it, slowly but surely! Time is going to pass anyways so may as well move towards your goal.

Now onto 7 day no gossip challenge! I will let you know how it turns out and also how I manage to avoid talking about others.