I wasn't sure where to put this, because it's kind of a weird question. Bear it with me.
I'm a thirteen year-old girl and I'm bringing one of my friends with me on a three week long trip to Europe. She's very nice, low-key, and low-maintinence (sp?), so I'm not really worried about getting sick of her. My problem is, I'm afraid SHE'LL get sick of ME. I guess I tend to complain a lot, and stuff like that, but I really want to get better about that. Does anyone have any tips for becoming more self-aware and complaining less?
I think you are currently more self-aware than you are giving yourself credit for. By asking this question you are showing that you are aware of how you behave and how it might irritate others, and that's a really positive and mature thing to be doing.
As you are already aware of what you think issues might be, you can work on them. You've probably formed habbits that are quite difficult to break, but this is possible - try, for example, forcing yourself to count to five or ten before you you say something like a complaint, asking yourself whether what you are saying is going to be productive in the conversation before responding, or forcing yourself to let one other person voice their opinion on the subject so you have time to think before giving an instant reaction which might be a complaint.
A lot of the work is just in forcing yourself to stop and think for a second before you speak or instinctively react - if you can get a hold of that, then you'll probably find that once you've remembered that your trying not to whine so much you'll be able to stop, because as soon as you think about it you realise that it's probably annoying and unnecessary.
This will probably take a bit of time to get into though, and you are likely to slip into old habbits occasionally - you are only human, after all. I think for that reason it's important to say to your friend that you are aware that you might be irritating, that you are working on things and most importantly, that if there is anything you are doing that irritates her that she should bring it up so that you know it bothers her and you can work on it. If you are both honest with each other and work hard at getting along, which you sound like you are more than willing to do, you should be fine together.
It's also important to give yourself some time away from each other. No matter how close you are to a person, if you spend 24 hours a day in each others company for three weeks you will begin to find some of their habbits grating. Try to have a little bit of alone time each day so that if you are irritating each other you get a bit of space from it and can get some perspective, and enjoy the time that you are spending together more,
Enjoy your holiday, and good luck with your friend.
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