Benefits of habit “Stop gossiping”
✓ Improves relationships
✓ Improves work ethic
✓ Makes you more trustworthy
✓ Reduces chances of hurting others
First step:
One day a week
Progress:
1. Today, whenever you have a conversation with someone, consciously stop yourself from gossiping about others. Do so for one day this week.
2. Next week, spend 2 days without gossiping.
3. Keep it up until every day you no longer feel the need to share other people’s private information.
Helpful tips to make it a habit:
✓ Same time is key. Counting in days, start your once per week practice on the same day, like Monday. That way, a habit will develop faster.
✓ Trigger your mind. Once you’ve taken a decision to stop gossiping, start wearing a bracelet or a ring that would signify this decision. It will trigger your memory which would stop you from sharing facts others have entrusted you with.
✓ Let the app help. Set a reminder to ring every morning with a message that it’s time to stop gossiping.
✓ Reward yourself. Once you’ve gone a month of successfully reducing the speed of gossip machine, reward yourself by practicing your new habit and gather a group of friends to go out with. You’ll see the difference it’s going to make with your immediate relationships when it’s based on trust.
Tips for beginners:
✓ Observe yourself. What pushes you to divulge other people’s private information? Is it revenge? Need to feel special? Once you figure out what drives you in this regard, it will be easier to work on stopping the gossip.
✓ Think of the hurt. Once you break the trust of a person, it is going to be hard to get it back. Broken trust hurts people more than many other actions, especially if they will feel embarrassed with information you have divulged. Think of how you would feel if the same was done to you.
✓ Easiest to forget. Whenever someone tells you something personal, it’s easiest to keep a secret if you simply forget about it. Most likely, the person wanted to vent and will never talk about it again. So, you should also practice forgetting what was told and simply getting on with your life.
