--- title: How Complaining Hurts Your Career (and Happiness) description: Leadership coach Rick Tamlyn on getting out of the toxic habits that impede our ability to be creative canonical: https://time.com/3991178/complainers-work-rick-tamlyn-career-coach/ author: Julia Lull article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-12T22:55:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:31:39.516Z og:title: How Complaining at Work Wrecks Your Career og:description: Leadership Coach Rick Tamlyn on how easy it is to be negative -- and how toxic og:url: https://time.com/3991178/complainers-work-rick-tamlyn-career-coach/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d30ccefa08e7366/69885f238e0601c809461db9/rick-tamlyn-life-coach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1700 og:image:height: 956 og:image:alt: Rick Tamlyn - Life Coach og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Complaining at Work Wrecks Your Career twitter:description: Leadership Coach Rick Tamlyn on how easy it is to be negative -- and how toxic twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d30ccefa08e7366/69885f238e0601c809461db9/rick-tamlyn-life-coach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How to Revive Your Creative Side at Work > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Each week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published weekly. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=ad3a1f8a-f86c-4bf0-a7aa-dac8aa64aa75&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How Complaining at Work Hurts Your Career [Watch (HLS stream): How Complaining at Work Hurts Your Career](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BiVS6RWX.m3u8) (2:04)  _Published 2015-08-10. The Science of Motivation: Rick Tamlyn on Complaining at Work_ by [Julia Lull](https://time.com/author/julia-lull/) and [Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) Aug 12, 2015 10:55 PM UTC The Science of Motivation: Rick Tamlyn on Complaining at Work by [Julia Lull](https://time.com/author/julia-lull/) and [Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) Aug 12, 2015 10:55 PM UTC It’s easy to get into the habit of complaining at work. In fact it can be a way of bonding with your colleagues. Those sidechat grousing sessions can feel so satisfying in the short term. But as leadership coach Rick Tamlyn explains, complaining has a toxic effect on our ability to progress and find our best creative selves. Of course, you may not think you’re a complainer, but as Tamlyn suggests, try tracking how many negative thoughts and words you express every day, versus the positive moments. The tally may surprise you. Changing that dynamic is hard, but key, says Tamlyn who believes changing the way we talk about our lives can be one of the most essential ways to move toward the career and life we want. _Tamlyn is a leadership coach, motivational speaker and advisor to Fortune 100 companies, small businesses, nonprofits, and churches. His goal is helping people get unstuck so that they can tap into their own creativity. He has built a global audience, speaking and conducting workshops in more than 17 countries for individuals and companies such as IBM, The Coaches Training Institute, Glaxo-SmithKline, Schneider Electric, among others._ _He is the_ _author of_ [_Play Your Bigger Game_](http://www.amazon.com/Play-Your-Bigger-Game-Lifetime/dp/1401942946) _(2013), and a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) as well as a Master Certified Coach (MCC) as designated by the International Coach Federation (ICF), and a senior trainer for The Coaches Training Institute, a coach training and leadership development organization._ ### You Asked: Your Top 10 Health Questions Answered  You Asked: Are Cleanses Healthy? Potions that claim to clear your body of toxins might sound alluring, but do they deliver? Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Eating Dessert Really That Bad For Me? Bad news for sweet-eaters—except if you end your meals with this kind of treat. 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Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Does Laughing Have Real Health Benefits? Here's proof that everybody could use a belly laugh. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: What Is My Poo Telling Me? If you listen hard enough, you'll hear all kinds of health stories from #2. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME _Read next:_ [_This Is the No. 1 Predictor of Career Success, According to Science_](http://time.com/4006770/career-success-networking/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day_](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/autoplay/?xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript what complaining does to our life and our career is huge. Our life moves in the direction of what we think about, what we talk about to each other primarily. So if we spend a good portion of our day complaining about what's not working, it actually starts to generate more of what's not working. [ MUSIC ] Motivation comes from having a conversation about what do we Create. Rather than the complaining conversation that we have most of our days. Many of use get caught here. Because it's easy to complain with each other, it feels good. As a coach and as a trainer, a motivator. I come along and say let's flip that. Rather than talk about what are you complaining about in your life, what's not working. Lets talk about what's working. Because then all of a sudden your life will start to go in that direction. There's little fibers in the brain, like the neural pathways they're called. And the more we complain, that neural pathways of that complaint actually grows a little bit every time you think about it. Remember the vinyl records? You play that record over and over again in the same groove, what happens it gets stuck in that groove and that's what happens in the brain. So it literally becomes a habit because the chemical nature of the brain says I have a thicker wire over there. I'm going to go there. We don't even notice it. We don't even notice it. So I come along and start to have a person think and really push against that and say stop doing that. Let's flip the conversation What is it you want to create? What is it you want to have in your life? Rather than what's not working in your life. A game to play is literally what are the thoughts that come in and what are you talking about? Catch it and have a little post it. Go okay, that was a negative moment and do a little check mark to negative moment or creative moment. Because I think those are the distinctions. Make two little lists and the end of the day go oh 80 % was spent over there. No wonder. These are very simple tool but it creates consciousness. It's a habit and it just starts spinning in that direction and we forget we can change the conversation. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3991178/complainers-work-rick-tamlyn-career-coach/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3991178/complainers-work-rick-tamlyn-career-coach/"},"headline":"How to Revive Your Creative Side at Work","datePublished":"2015-08-12T22:55:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-05T08:31:39.516Z","description":"Leadership coach Rick Tamlyn on getting out of the toxic habits that impede our ability to be creative","url":"https://time.com/3991178/complainers-work-rick-tamlyn-career-coach/","keywords":["Living","Careers & Workplace","Creativity","career"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d30ccefa08e7366/69885f238e0601c809461db9/rick-tamlyn-life-coach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Lull","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-lull/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Arpita Aneja","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d30ccefa08e7366/69885f238e0601c809461db9/rick-tamlyn-life-coach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Rick Tamlyn - Life Coach","caption":"Rick Tamlyn - Life Coach","creditText":"Kirk McKoy—LA Times/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3991178/complainers-work-rick-tamlyn-career-coach/","name":"How to Revive Your Creative Side at Work"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Complaining at Work Hurts Your Career","description":"The Science of Motivation: Rick Tamlyn on Complaining at Work","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/BiVS6RWX/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-08-10T17:52:49.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BiVS6RWX.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3991178/complainers-work-rick-tamlyn-career-coach/","duration":"PT2M4S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3991178/complainers-work-rick-tamlyn-career-coach/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```