How to Stop Complaining and Get Better Results in Your Business

If you've ever wondered why some people seem to keep getting what they want while you're doing all the right things and getting half the results, the answer is probably not what you're doing. It's what you're saying — to other people and to yourself — about what you're doing.

"Get better problems." — Tony Robbins

We all want stuff. But who's willing to do what it takes to get it?

One of my personal heroes is the magnificent Serena Williams. Although she was sponsored by Nike, "just do it" does nothing to capture the heart, passion, courage, and hard work she put in for over three decades to achieve what she did.

Most of us don't want what Serena wanted. Most of us aren't trying to be the greatest of all time. We're trying to move from where we are to somewhere better — a little or a lot — and that's a different kind of project, with different rules.

But all the action in the world will be tainted if you don't change one specific thing first.

What Expectancy Theory Says About Your Results

For over two decades, my business has supported people to take action in their businesses and in their lives. There's something underlying in the psyche of every human that greatly affects results — and once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Whether you look at it from neuroscience, the law of attraction, or just personal experience, there's a concept called Expectancy Theory: what you actually expect makes a huge difference in the results you get. Not what you say you expect. Not what you put in your manifestation journal. What you actually, in the bones of you, believe is about to happen.

Belief is great. But there's something more practical underneath belief, and changing it is what shifts everything.

The Habit That's Quietly Sabotaging Your Results

I'm going to say this to you as someone with more experience than Serena in perfecting my skill — in complaining.

Stop complaining.

I know how hard that is to do, and in no way am I saying ignore your feelings or repress yourself. Therapy, doctors, healers, and empowerment programs are wonderful for addressing real blocks. The shadow work matters.

I'm talking about something smaller and more constant: the day-to-day, moment-to-moment words coming out of your mouth, reflecting the thoughts you think roughly 52,000 times a day, actively shaping the results you get.

That's the complaining to jettison.

Casual complaining — about traffic, about your inbox, about your team, about the weather, about how nothing's working — sounds harmless. It's the texture of normal life. But it's also the texture of your own expectations, repeated to yourself and to everyone around you, all day long. And expectation is what Expectancy Theory says shapes your results.

How to Actually Stop (Without Repressing Yourself)

This tool sounds easy and simple — and it requires massive attention to shift. Most people try once, catch themselves complaining within ten minutes, decide it's impossible, and stop. Here's the actual practice.

1. Notice without judging

The first phase isn't stopping. It's noticing. You can't change what you can't see, and most complaining is so automatic you don't register it as complaining. Spend a day just listening to yourself talk — out loud and in your head — without trying to change anything. Most people are stunned by what they hear.

2. Distinguish complaining from venting and from naming a real problem

Not all negative talk is complaining. Saying "this client isn't a fit and I need to refund them" is naming a real problem you're going to act on. Saying "ugh, why do clients always do this to me" is complaining. The difference is whether the words lead toward action or just reinforce a story. One changes your results. The other doesn't.

3. Replace the complaint with what you actually want

When you catch yourself complaining, the move isn't to suppress it. It's to immediately follow it with a sentence about what you actually want. "I'm so behind on email and I want to be the kind of person who responds within 48 hours and I'm working on it." The second half rewires the first half. Over weeks, your default narration changes.

What Happens When You Actually Work This

POV: this is something I work on every day. It's one of the hardest practices I've ever committed to, and I'm not done. Twenty-plus years in, and I still catch myself.

But here's what I can tell you, after working it for real: it starts working. Slowly at first, then noticeably. Your results shift. Your relationships shift. The way you walk into a room shifts.

And here's the spicier piece nobody warns you about: once you've stopped tolerating it in yourself, it gets much harder to be around in other people. The casual complaining you used to bond over with friends, family, colleagues — it starts to feel loud. Heavy. Like something you don't want in your day.

That's a good thing. Uncomfortable, but good. Your tolerance for the thing that was sabotaging you goes down. Which is exactly what needs to happen for the change to hold.

Once you put your attention into speaking in a way that makes you feel good, hopeful, and powerful, you're open to flow, aligned action, and truly incredible-seeming results.

This is the kind of mindset work we build into the structure of House of Done — not because we're a mindset program, but because you can't follow through on the things that matter when your own narration is undermining you all day.

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Here's to you getting what you want — and feeling good while you do.

❤️ Leah