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You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen Rubin is the author of several books, including the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers Better Than Before and The Happiness Project. In Better Than Before, mastering the habits of our everyday lives, she provides surprising insights and practical advice drawn from cutting-edge research, ancient wisdom, and her own observations. She’s also the author of the new book The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too).
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Gretchen and I spoke about the Four Tendencies and how to uncover whether you’re an Upholder, a Rebel, a Questioner, or an Obliger, and the gifts and challenges that each type faces, especially when it comes to changing habits. We talked about the surprising importance of uncluttering our physical spaces, and how do we get started when we know there’s a habit in our life that we need to change? Here’s my conversation with the very practical Upholder—Gretchen Rubin.
Gretchen, I’m really excited to be talking with you, because here at Sounds True, we’re committed, and we have been for several decades, to supporting people when it comes to personal transformation. Yet, I still have a lot of questions about the process itself, and why it seems so hard for people to make certain changes in their life, and different views I’ve heard from different authors over the years about how change happens. So to begin with, can you tell us how you’ve linked making changes in one’s life to habit change, and why you decided to focus on habit change as a path, you could say, to any change you want to make in your life?
Gretchen Rubin: Well, it’s interesting, because I think that when you talk to people about what they want to achieve—how they want to be happy, or healthy, or more productive and more creative—a lot of times people know perfectly well what they should do. They should put down their devices, or they should get more sleep, or they should quit sugar, or they should work on their novel, or they should read the Bible every day, or they need to get more exercise, or they need to join a book group, or see their college friends. We know what we—sometimes we don’t know, but sometimes we do know the kinds of things that would make us happier.
The more I thought about these things and why people were struggling, the more I realized that, in many cases, this had to do with something that could be a habit. We want the habit of exercising regularly indefinitely, or eating healthfully regularly indefinitely. Habits are powerful, because they get us out of the draining, difficult business of using our self-control and making decisions, both of which are very arduous. If something’s a habit, it just happens on autopilot and you don’t have to think about it or fuss about it. So then it’s a lot easier to stick with these kinds of changes.
TS: Mm-hmm. Now, one of the very interesting things that you say in your new book, The Four Tendencies, is that we don’t all go about changing habits in the same way. This was very helpful to me, because as I said, I’ve spoken to some people that I’ve interviewed for this Insights at the Edge series, and they’ll say, “Here’s how you do it.” Then I talk to someone else, and they’re like, “Here’s how you do it.” It’s very different. Help me understand how you came to this realization that we actually go about effectively changing our habits differently depending on who we are.
GR: Well, see, this is the thing. I agree that there’s so many experts out there, and they’re all like, “This is the best way,” or, “This is the right way.” We’ve all heard all the expert advice for habit change: “Do it for 30 days,” “Do it first thing in the morning,” “Give yourself a cheat day.” The fact is, all these work very well for some people sometimes, but they don’t work for everybody all the time. When I got really into this—and it’s true about habits, and it’s also true about happiness generally—is there is no magic, one-size-fits-all solution. When anybody says, “Here are the seven bullet points that work for everyone,” or, “Here’s the one secret to success,” it just can’t be true.
The minute you stop and think about it, you know that it can’t be true, because people—we’re all so different from each other. The fact that something works for your sister-in-law or it worked for Steve Jobs is interesting and could be useful, but it’s just something for you to consider. I think what happens is that sometimes people try something and then it doesn’t work for them, and then they become very discouraged and frustrated. They start thinking, “Well, there’s something wrong with me. I’m lazy. I have no willpower. I can’t keep my promises to myself. Why is it that everybody else can use a to-do list, or everybody else can put things on their calendar, or everybody else can just get up and do something on their own and I can’t?”
But this is not surprising, because people are very different from each other. In many ways, we’re very much alike, but the differences are really important. I think once you really get a handle on how you might be different from other people, then all this becomes much easier. Like for me, I realize I have a lot of quirks, and when I work with those quirks, I do much better than when I ignore those quirks.
TS: What kind of quirks do you have?
GR: Well, one thing that’s not particularly quirky, but it is something that comes up all the time in habit change is morning people and night people. This is a real thing. It’s largely genetically determined. It’s also a function of age. Some people really are morning people, and some people are really night people. Now, as a morning person, I used to think everyone could become a morning person if they would just go to bed on time. This is not the case. Night people are at their most productive, energetic, and creative much later in the day. So if you’re a night person, if somebody could say to you, “Hey, what you need to do is get up at 7 AM and go for a run before work, and here’s the 10 reasons why this is a good idea,” it’s like, “Yes, well, it doesn’t matter, because I’m a night person.”
If you’re a night person, you can probably barely get to work on time, let alone get up and go for a run. That’s just setting yourself up for failure, because you’re a night person. It’s not because you lack willpower, or self-discipline, or anything like that. You just would do better going for a run at 4 PM, or whatever would work for you, at your lunchtime. When you set things up to suit yourself rather than trying to fit into a model of what someone else says works, then you just do much better.
The thing is—and I count myself among this—whenever habit experts talk about what works, they usually are talking about what works for them. It’s like, “Well, that’s great that it works for you, but it’s not necessarily going to work for everybody.” Here’s another quirk that I have: when facing a strong temptation, some people are abstainers. They do better when they have none. They could have none, or they can have a lot. They can’t have a little. Then there are moderators. Moderators get kind of panicky and rebellious if they’re told they can never have something. They do better if they have a little bit or they have something sometimes.
Those are the people that have the bar of fine chocolate in their desk drawer, and then every day or two they have one square of fine chocolate, and that’s all they want. For me, I’m going to eat that whole chocolate bar in one day. My whole day is going to be consumed with one square, two squares, three squares, four squares. I can have no chocolate, or I can have the whole chocolate bar, but I can’t have one square of fine chocolate. That’s just the way some people are. Some people are abstainers. Some people are moderators. It’s not that one way is right and one way is wrong. It’s just that when you know what works for you, you can follow the strategy that is going to be easier for you.
TS: Now, Gretchen, you created this cartography system, if you will, that you call the Four Tendencies. Because yes, we’re all different, but also—as you said—we have a lot in common. It seems like these are four big groupings that are useful. Talk a little bit, first of all, about how you went about this and the research behind it, and then what these four categories are.
GR: I got my first insight into what turned into the Four Tendencies in a very ordinary moment. I was having lunch with a friend—and I am kind of a happiness bully, so I was grilling her about her happiness and her habits—and she said something that was very much like what other people had said, but for some reason it just hit me like a lightning bolt. She said, “I know I would be happier if I exercised. The weird thing is when I was in high school, I was on the track team and I never missed track practice, so why can’t I go running now?” I thought, “Well, it’s the same person, the same behavior. At one time, it was effortless. Now, she can’t do it. What’s going on? How do you explain that?”
The more I thought about it, and the more I started thinking about this kind of habit challenge, I started seeing other patterns too. Patterns related to the way people view January 1st as an arbitrary date, so they didn’t want to start—the way some people love the idea of habits. The way some people really detested the idea of habits. All these patterns were swirling around in my head, and I couldn’t figure out how they hooked together until I was looking down at my own to-do list one day, and all of a sudden the word “expectation” started ringing in my head. I realized that this was the core of all these patterns that I was trying to make sense of, was this idea of expectation.
We all have two kinds of expectations: outer expectations, which are the expectations that others put on us, like a work deadline, and then our own expectations for ourselves, like our own desire to get back into meditation. I realized that depending on how you meet or resist outer and inner expectations, you’re either an Upholder, a Questioner, an Obliger, or a Rebel. Once I figured that out, I started seeing how that explained all kinds of patterns in how people change or don’t change.
TS: OK, so that’s a big statement, first of all, that it explains all of our patterns of changing and not changing, so let’s—
GR: It doesn’t explain all our patterns.
TS: OK.
GR: It explains a significant, significant factor.
TS: OK. Let’s go through each one, and if you will, as you talk about how it either meets or resists outer and inner expectations, maybe give us some examples as you go through each one to make it really real for people. They’ll be able to think of someone they know.
GR: Right. Right. There’s Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Most people can tell what they are from just a brief description, but I do have a quiz that more than a million people have taken now. If you just go to my site, GretchenRubin.com, you can take the quiz and get an answer. Like I said, most people don’t need it. They can just tell from this very brief description.
Upholders are people who readily meet outer and inner expectations. They meet the work deadline. They keep the New Year’s resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. If I say, “Who is a famous Upholder?” I think the most famous Upholder right now is Hermione Granger. If you know your Harry Potter, Hermione is a textbook Upholder. She readily meets her outer expectations that are put on her, but also her inner expectations for herself.
Then there are Questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They’ll do something if they think it makes sense. They make everything an inner expectation. If it meets their inner standard, they will do it. No problem. If it fails their inner standard, they will push back. They don’t like anything arbitrary, inefficient, irrational. They always want to know, “Why should I?” This is the person who—they are very often said that they ask too many questions. They’re always wanting to have more and more information about why they should do something. It has to make sense to them.
Then there are Obligers. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. This is my friend on the track team. When she had a team and a coach waiting for her, no problem. When she was trying to go running on her own, she struggled. Obliger is the biggest tendency. This is the one that the most number of people belong to, for both men and women. Obligers are people who are going to meet the work deadline, but they are going to have trouble when they’re just trying to do something on their own.
Then finally, Rebels. Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way in their own time, and if you ask or tell them to something, they’re very likely to resist. Typically, they don’t even want to tell themselves what to do, like they wouldn’t—they would typically not do something like sign up for a 10 AM spin class on Saturdays, because they’re like, “I don’t know what I’m going to want to do on Saturday.” Just the fact that somebody is expecting them to show up at 10 AM would sort of get on their nerves. They’re often people where, if you ask or tell them to do something, even as something as simple as, “Hey, you’ve got to read this book. You’ll love it,” they might be like, “I’m not going to read that book.”
That’s the smallest tendency. It’s a conspicuous tendency, but it’s the smallest tendency. Rebel is the smallest tendency, and Upholder is only slightly larger—that’s my tendency—only slightly larger. These are two small tendencies. Obliger is the biggest, and after that, Questioner.
TS: Do you find people coming into hybrid categories? “I’m a Questioner-Rebel.”
GR: Well, if you think about the Four Tendencies—and it’s even clearer if you see a diagram of the four interlocking circles—each tendency shares a quality with two other tendencies. Let’s say you’re an Obliger. If you’re an Obliger, you are also like an Upholder, in that you both readily meet outer expectations. But an Obliger is also like a Rebel, in that they both resist inner expectations. I do believe that everyone fits into a core tendency, but whether you tip to one side or the other of your tendency will color it very much.
Like an Obliger who tips to Upholder—I have a podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, and my cohost is my sister, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is an Obliger who tips to Upholder. An Obliger who tips to Upholder has kind of a different flavor of Obligerness than an Obliger who tips to Rebel. You’re still in that core tendency, but you do take a shading from a different tendency.
TS: Mm-hmm. OK. If you were to describe for me the habit change challenge for each one of these types, like, “This is how it’s hard for them, and this is what supports them in making changes,” depending on the type that you are.
GR: Well, I’ll start with Obliger, because that’s the biggest tendency. Here is the key thing: of everything in the book and everything in the framework, this is probably the idea that has helped the most people to make change successfully. If you are an Obliger, or you’re dealing with an Obliger—who is meeting outer expectations but struggling to meet inner expectations, which by definition they are, [as] that is the definition of an Obliger—the solution, the key element that must be supplied, is outer accountability for the inner expectation. Obligers must have outer accountability, even for something that is an inner expectation. This is super easy. There are a million ways to do this.
For instance, if you want to read more, join a book group. What would I say to my friend who was running on the track team but didn’t run on her own? I’d say, “Sign up for a class where they take attendance. Run with a friend who’s going to be annoyed if you don’t show up. Work out with a trainer. Exercise with your dog, who’s going to be so disappointed if you don’t take him for his daily run. By the way, he’s also going to tear up the living room furniture. Volunteer to run for a charity, where they’re not going to make as much money if you don’t go on that run. Think of your duty to be a role model for other people. Think of your duty to your future self.”
I’ve been surprised by how many Obligers can hold themselves accountable for their future self. “Future Gretchen will really wish that I had exercised today. Now Gretchen doesn’t want to do it, but I have to do it, because Future Gretchen is going to be so upset.” There’s a million ways to build an outer accountability once you realize that that is what is needed.
Sometimes Obligers are like, “Well, I don’t want to have to depend on outer accountability. I want to just be able to depend on myself.” I say, in my observation, that doesn’t work. That just doesn’t work. Outer accountability works. Inner accountability doesn’t work very well for Obligers. I’m like, “Take this simple, easy solution. It is so straightforward to give yourself outer accountability once you realize that’s what you need.” That is what will work. I would say, for Obligers to have habit change, it’s making sure they have outer accountability.
Now, let’s say you’re a Questioner. For Questioners, it’s all about clarity. When I talk to—because they can meet inner expectations, so if they are not meeting an inner expectation, what I always say to them is, “Are you really clear in your own mind on what you’re expecting yourself to do and why?” For instance, a lot of Rebels will be like, “Well, you know what? I really want to eat healthfully, but I just can’t stick to it.” I’m like, “OK. What are you asking yourself to do exactly? How exactly would eating healthfully look for you? Have you really in your own mind satisfactorily answered the question, ‘What does it mean to eat healthfully?'”
Because right now, there’s so many theories of [inaudible] running around society. There’s a million people telling you—I myself am one of these crazy low-carb people. I eat practically no carbs. I am an advocate for that. Not everybody subscribes to that. If a Questioner doesn’t really in their own mind feel like they’ve arrived at the answer, or if they are being asked to do it by an authority whose judgment they don’t wholly trust, then they don’t follow through. For a Questioner, it’s all about clarity. What are you asking yourself, and have you decided that this course of action is the most efficient thing that makes the most sense for you? That’s what gets Questioners moving.
They also tend to love to monitor, because they love that information on themselves. So things like step-tracking, food journals, things like that they tend to like. They also love to customize. “OK, yes, maybe I’ve got this 30-day fitness program, but I’m going to do it my own way.” Let a Questioner do that. They like to customize.
Now, Rebels are in a little bit of a tricky situation, because a lot of the strategies that work well for the other three tendencies don’t work for Rebels. They’re often very puzzled by this and frustrated, because they’re like, “Everybody keeps telling me to make a to-do list. Everybody tells me to set priorities. Everybody tells me to put something on the calendar. I joined this Weight Watchers group. I do all this stuff and it doesn’t work.” I’m like, “Right, because you’re a Rebel,” so that stuff typically doesn’t work very well for Rebels.
What works for Rebels is first to think of identity. Rebels always want to be putting forth their authentic identity into the world. Instead of saying, “Gretchen, you can’t eat sugar. You shouldn’t eat flour. Your doctor is telling you you have to change the way you eat,” those are not going to resonate with a Rebel. I would say to myself, “I’m a strong, healthy, energetic person. I’ve always been that way. I like to eat clean food that’s fresh and delicious, and so that’s my identity. What kind of person am I? I’m a healthy, athletic person who wants to eat a certain way.”
Rebels also don’t like to be chained or controlled, so I might say to myself, “I’m not addicted to sugar. I can’t be forced to—I can’t be suckered into buying these processed foods by the big food companies, with their fancy marketing and their crinkly packages. I’m not going to fall for that. I’m free from that. I’m not going to be controlled by sugar.” Those are the kind of things that work for Rebels. Identity, and freedom, and choice—this is what the Rebel chooses. Rebels can do anything they want to do. They can do anything they choose to do. But they will act from choice and freedom, not because somebody tells them that they have to do something— even themselves.
Then Upholders—this comes pretty easily for Upholders. This is where it’s really good to be an Upholder. If you want to make a habit, it’s pretty good to be an Upholder, because that’s the kind of thing that Upholders are good at. They’re good at setting expectations and following through. The thing about Upholders too is this can make them look cold, because it’s like, “Oh, yes, well, I know we have guests coming this weekend to stay, but I’m training for the marathon. I have to go on a 15-mile run on Saturday, so that’s happening.”
To other people, that could be like, “Well, that’s kind of cold. How can you go for a 15-mile run when you have company?” It’s like, “Yes. I’ve got this inner expectation. It has to be met.” It’s good in some ways and not so good in others. That’s like all the tendencies. There’s strengths and weaknesses to all of these tendencies.
TS: Now, I’m sure you’ve received lot of questions from people about the legitimacy, if you will, of the model. Like, “Really? Does everybody really fit into one of these categories?” How do you answer that from a research-based perspective?
GR: Well, the first thing is if what you’re thinking is, “I question the validity of your framework,” you’re probably a Questioner, so there you go. This is an observational framework, and so I didn’t have a roomful of undergraduates at Stanford eating marshmallows to come up with this. This is something that I saw in the world around me, and the more I looked, the more that I saw it, the more I could see examples of it. You could say, “OK, confirmation bias. You see what you’re looking for.” I worked very hard against that. I spent months just attacking it, saying, “But what about this? How do you account for this? What about this exception?”
What I think is the most compelling thing about it is since I introduced the framework—I introduced it briefly in my book Better Than Before, which is about the 21 strategies of how to change, then, as you said, my newest book is all about the Four Tendencies—is that I’ve heard from so many people who have put it to use. I’m sort of like, “It has a truth to it because it works,” even though I don’t have the research. Now, there’s been a call. There was an article in a medical journal calling for research. There’s a guy who is an addiction and eating specialist who is using it in his practice. There’s starting to be people looking at it to study it and to provide that scientific basis. So I’m very excited about that and I welcome that, but I don’t want to overstate how I came up with it, which is just purely through what I observed.
TS: Sure.
GR: The fact is, it seems to resonate with a lot of people and to give them guidance about how to make change. That’s my claim for it: it works.
TS: In terms of how we each come to whatever our tendency is, one of the things that I read with interest in The Four Tendencies is that with one of your children, you’re not sure which tendency your daughter fits into. I thought, “Huh. That’s interesting.” Is this a nature or nurture situation? How do we come into being whatever tendency we are?
GR: Well, I’m a big believer in the genetic roots of personality generally. I think that the Four Tendencies are hardwired. I think you bring this tendency into the world with you. I don’t think it’s a matter of upbringing, or culture, or generation, or birth order, or anything like that. I do think children are not autonomous in the way that adults are autonomous, and so their tendency isn’t always as obvious because they’re not free actors in the way that adults are.
Now, for some children, it’s very obvious. I’ve heard from many, many people who are like, “My four-year-old is a Rebel. How do I handle this situation? I clearly have a six-year-old Questioner.” My younger daughter is an Upholder, and that was obvious from the time she was five. Sometimes it’s very obvious, but sometimes it’s not so obvious. My daughter is either an Obliger or a Questioner, and she keeps giving me false signals. I think by the end of this school year, when she’s been on her own for a year at college, I think it’s going to be pretty clear. I think she’s a Questioner. She’s looking more and more Questioner the longer she’s been away from home.
TS: OK, Gretchen, I’m going to ask a personal question.
GR: Oh, OK.
TS: I couldn’t tell, from taking the quiz and even from this conversation, if I’m a Questioner or a Rebel. Can you help me sort that out?
GR: Yes. If I ask you to do something—let’s say I ask you to unload the dishwasher—would you be thinking more, “Why should I?” or would you be thinking, “Eh, you’re not the boss of me?”
TS: To be honest with you, I’d probably do it if I liked you a reasonable amount. I would probably just happily do it because I like doing things and it’s a reasonable request. Yes.
GR: OK.
TS: Sorry. I don’t mean to be difficult. Yes.
GR: Let’s try a different scenario, because now you’re tapping into the value of consideration for others. Because one of the things about the tendencies: all it tells you is somebody’s response to expectations. It doesn’t tell you—people could be wildly different on how considerate of other people they are, how ambitious they are, how adventurous they are, how analytical they are, how intellectual they are. You’re tapping into a value, so that’s kind of clouding it, because you could be a Rebel or a Questioner with a high value of consideration for other people.
Let’s try another question. You and I are in a coffee shop. We’re in the back room of a coffee shop. There’s nobody really around, and there’s a big sign on the wall that says, “No cell phones.” I pull out my phone and start using my cell phone. How do you feel about that?
TS: I’d probably pull out my cell phone. I wouldn’t care at all. I’d think, “Good on you. Who cares? Why the hell did they have signs like that anyway?”
GR: OK. I think you’re a Rebel. You could be a Questioner tipping to Rebel, but you might be a Rebel.
TS: All right.
GR: Yes, because you’re like, “Great. That’s great. Break the rule.”
TS: Definitely.
GR: Because Questioners usually would say something like, “Well, if we were at a hospital and it was going to interfere with equipment, then I would say you shouldn’t, but if we’re in a . . .” They would talk about the rationale. Did it make sense to have that sign? Because for Questioners, it’s like, “If it makes sense, then I will respect it. If it doesn’t make sense, then it’s not worthy of respect.” A Rebel is like, “Break the rules. Who cares?”
TS: What I noticed in unfortunately thinking that perhaps I was a Rebel, and you said it’s a small part of the population, it actually—to be honest with you—seems like a difficult one of the Four Tendencies to have. It seems difficult to me. Do you know what I mean? You don’t want to meet other people’s expectations, and you’re not even that interested in your own. You just want some kind of authentic identity. Do you think in some ways it’s the hardest to work with?
GR: Well, that’s very interesting because it’s funny—some Rebels love being Rebels. One Rebel described everybody else as “muggles,” which I thought was hilarious. Some Rebels love it, and some Rebels are very frustrated with being Rebels. They feel like it makes everything harder for them, and they see other people executing on expectations, and they get frustrated. I think for other people it can be difficult, because it can be challenging if you ask or tell somebody to do something [and] they’re very likely to resist. It can be hard in work and in life.
I will say, the Rebel is the smallest tendency, but it’s the longest chapter in the book, because I think it’s the hardest one to wrap your mind around if you’re one of the other tendencies. It’s just coming from a very—this idea of acting from choice and freedom goes very, very deep with Rebels, and it’s hard. I’ve learned so much by studying the Rebel perspective, and how we all have so much more freedom than we think. It’s been incredibly useful for me, because as an Upholder, I’m like the opposite of a Rebel.
I think there can be challenges to it. But I think because Rebels could do anything they want to do, anything they choose to do, there’s tremendous power in the Rebel tendency. This ability to flout convention or other people’s expectations is very powerful. I think part of it is knowing your Rebel tendency and getting yourself to a place where it’s working for you as a strength, and you’re not limited by its weaknesses or its limitations, because all these tendencies have strengths and weaknesses and you can set things up to account for that.
If you’re a Rebel, you just might think like, “Well, if I go into this situation, is this going to be . . .” Let’s say, you were dating somebody, and you were like, “I wonder if this is going to work out.” Well, if you’re a Rebel, you probably put a high value on spontaneity. You don’t like being over-scheduled. You like to be able to do what feels right. Like, “So it’s the weekend. Let’s just wake up Saturday morning and see where the day takes us.” See, to me, as an Upholder, that would make me crazy. I would hate that. I like to be scheduled every minute of every day. To me, being a Benedictine monk sounds like fantasy. That’s going to be a conflict in our relationship, because—
TS: No. We wouldn’t do well together. You and I would not do well together, Gretchen.
GR: See, there you go.
TS: Yes.
GR: It’s not to say, “Oh, have I heard of Upholder/Rebel couples, or Upholder/Questioner couples?” Absolutely, 100 percent I have. It’s not like it never works, but usually when Rebels are paired up—either in work or in romance—it’s with an Obliger. That’s by far the pairing that is dominant for Rebels, Rebel/Obliger.
TS: Mm-hmm.
GR: Again, if you’re a Rebel, if you take that into account, you’re like, “Well, it probably is going to be a conflict for me to be with somebody who puts a lot of value on planning everything out,” or like, “I’m going into a workplace.” Some workplaces really value flexibility, spontaneity, every day is different, like, “Oh, I’m a restaurant manager of an 11-store chain, and so every day, I’m driving around the city. I’m seeing new people. I’m going to new places. Nobody is really looking over my shoulder. If I want to take a couple of hours and go work out, nobody knows where I am.” That might really appeal to a Rebel, you know? The idea of, “OK. You’re going to show up. You’re going to sit in this desk every single day with your headset on, with the same two people on either side of you. From 8:05 AM to 12:05 PM, you’re going to be working,” Rebels get—that might not sit well with them.
TS: Mm-hmm.
GR: Again, it can be a strength, but it can also be a limitation. You just want to think about how certain things might be easier or harder, given your tendency.
TS: As an Upholder, what about that type is hard for you? What makes it hard?
GR: Well, one thing about Upholders is they don’t do well when things are ambiguous or when it’s not clear what expectations are. They really often do not like to be told that they did something wrong. It’s very important to them to do things right, which is good, but then they can become kind of defensive. I certainly am like this. I hate to be told that I did something wrong or to make a mistake. In a way, it’s good, because I really work hard to not make a mistake. But then I really take it hard and can sometimes be very, very defensive and angry if it turns out that I have made a mistake, which obviously, I do.
Upholders can also experience tightening—I’ve experienced this—which is when rules get tighter. I have a friend who is an Upholder, and he had a Fitbit that was counting his steps. He’s like, “My wife was asleep in the bedroom and I was in the bathroom at midnight, jogging next to my toilet, because I was going to hit my 10,000 steps that day by midnight—no matter what.” It can be good, because you’re being very conscientious, but it can also be bad.
I’m doing physical therapy right now, and I had to say to my physical therapist, “How many times should I do this a day?” Because I might do it six [or] eight times because the rules are getting tighter on me. I’m like, “I should do it twice a day. I should do it four times a day. I should do it eight times a day.” That can easily happen with an Upholder. If you’re dealing with an Upholder, you want to say something like, “You should do this twice a day, and no more than twice a day.” That’s good, because you don’t want the Upholder going too far.
I think Upholders can seem cold to other people, because they’re like, “I’ve got to take care of my own stuff, so I really don’t have the flexibility.” I have mottoes for all the tendencies, which is so much fun. Oh my gosh. I had thousands of these. I had to cut so many out for the book. One of the mottoes for Upholderss is, “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.”
TS: I think I’ve heard that from some Upholders I’ve worked with. Yes.
GR: Yes. That’s a famous line, because it’s like, “I get that you would like me to help you with carpool, but why are you only knowing about that this morning? Because I’ve made other plans. Why didn’t you tell me this on Sunday night?”
TS: Mm-hmm.
GR: It can seem cold. Whereas to an Upholder, that seems appropriate. “Oh, yes. You got to meet—you’ve got your own schedule that you have to keep.”
TS: OK, Gretchen, I’m liking going into the hard nut, if you will, for each one of the types. Let’s go into it for the Questioner. What’s hard for the Questioner?
GR: OK. The motto for the Questioner is, “I’ll comply if you convince me why.” It’s all about understanding the whys. There’s a lot of strengths of Questioners, like they keep things efficient. They’re the ones who are always asking why. It helps everybody, but the problem with it is they can sometimes drain and overwhelm others with their persistent questioning. Sometimes, people are like, “You’re asking too many questions. You’re slowing things down. You’re acting as a bottleneck.”
Sometimes, also, you might be in a workplace or in a family where questioning is really rewarded and valued, but in some places it’s not. You could have a teacher—if you’re a child Questioner—you could have a teacher who thinks you’re being disrespectful when you’re asking questions, or you could have a thin-skinned boss who thinks that you’re undermining her authority by asking so many questions. It’s important that Questioners learn how to ask questions in a way that seems constructive. Many Questioners report having gotten into trouble or even getting fired for being perceived to be asking too many questions and slowing things down.
One thing that you see with Questioners is they can sometimes fall into analysis paralysis. This is when their desire for perfect information or more information means that they can’t make a decision or move forward. A lot of times in life, we have to move forward without perfect information. Let’s say you want to buy a tent. You could research that for the rest of your life because there’s so much information, and there’s new information all the time. At a certain point, you have to make a decision in life or in work.
Three ways you can help with a Questioner in analysis paralysis: one is deadlines. “We need to have an answer by Friday. It’s not efficient to wait, so give me your best answer by Friday.” You could set limits. “Well, I’m going to go to two camping stores and talk to the clerks about tents, but I’m not going to go to seven camping stores. I’m just going to go to the two best stores.”
Then there’s trust in authority, which is, “Is there somebody whose judgment can guide me? I’m going to look in Consumer Reports.” Let’s say I need to pick a software program. I know this team uses this software program. These are smart people. They did their research, so I’m not going to slavishly do what they did, but I can be—they’ve had a good experience with this, and I could be guided by their judgment. I don’t have to invent this from the ground up. I can use the trust in authority.” Those are some things that come up with Questioners.
TS: OK. Then finally, the Obliger type. What’s hard for the Obliger?
GR: What’s hard for the Obliger? The motto of the Obliger is, “You can count on me, and I’m counting on you to count on me.” The key thing for Obligers—and so many Obligers resist this, and I’m like, “Resistance is futile,” accept it—harness the power of outer accountability, give yourself outer accountability for those inner expectations. That’s what works for Obligers. That’s what works. It’s very straightforward.
Here is a very striking pattern that hits Obligers. It’s really important for Obligers to understand—and the people around Obligers, because since they are the biggest tendency, you either are an Obliger or you have many Obligers in your life—and that is the pattern of Obliger rebellion. This is when Obligers will meet, meet, meet, meet expectations, then suddenly they snap, and they’re like, “This I won’t do.” It can be something small and symbolic. “I’m just not going to answer your emails for a couple weeks.” Or it can be huge. “I’m going to divorce you. I’m going to end a 20-year friendship. I’m going to quit this job and go work for a competitor because you’re dead to me. I’ve had it. This is over.”
What I didn’t understand for a while was that Obliger rebellion is really meant to be beneficial. It is meant to help an Obliger, because it hits when Obligers feel neglected, exploited, taken advantage of, ignored, or when expectations are just too hard and too high. It’s meant to blow up a situation and relieve the Obliger of this unbearable weight of expectation. But it is not a reasoned pushback. It’s not a considered resistance. It’s explosive. It’s kind of out of control. Obligers themselves describe it as being out of control and almost mysterious to them. They’ll often say, “I’m acting out of character.” Though, actually, once you understand about Obliger rebellion, you see that it’s very much—it’s a very predictable pattern.
What you want to do, as an Obliger or someone around Obligers, is get in front of it. Be aware of the building resentment and anger that’s building in this Obliger, and to try to figure out a way to solve it. Let’s say you’re a manager. You would want to look at your team and say, “OK, one person is doing way more arduous work travel than everybody else. Why is that fair?” Or, “Three people are picking up all the extra shifts, and other people are picking up none. How is that fair?” Or, “You haven’t taken a vacation in 18 months. I want you to come in by Friday and give me a plan about when you’re going to take a week off, because you’re too important to this team. We cannot have you burning out, so I’m going to tell you right now that you need to take a vacation.” Not in a punitive way, but because you need to help people take breaks.
You need to create outer expectations to make sure that that Obliger rebellion doesn’t set in, because it seems to me—I’ve spent a lot of time talking to Obligers about Obliger rebellion. Once it sets in, it just runs its course. It just has to kind of burn itself out. You can’t really stop it once it starts, so the thing is to try to thwart it. It’s to try to be aware of how it might be building and get in front of it.
For instance, just as a home example, I talked to a Questioner woman who had an Obliger husband. She said, “Well, it was great, because I realized every weekend, we were doing everything that I wanted to get done, but nothing that my husband wanted to get done.” You might think, “Well, this is a great situation. He’s not asking to get anything done, so I’ll just go along with this. This is great for me.” She realized, “No. He’s an Obliger. I’m taking advantage of this.” What she did is: now, every Friday, they each make a list of what they’d like to get done over the weekend—her list and his list. She holds him accountable for making his list. Then, as the weekend goes forward, they make sure that they do things from both lists. That’s a really wise way of not allowing Obliger rebellion to build, because you’re saying, “How can we set this up so that everyone’s expectations are fulfilled and it’s not a situation that’s unfair?” Because eventually, that Obliger is going to blow up.
TS: Mm-hmm. OK, Gretchen, I think you’ve made a pretty compelling case that it’s helpful to become familiar with these Four Tendencies, to know what your own tendency is, the people around you that you work with, your intimate partner. That will help you both understand yourself and other people, and make changes in your life by understanding how you change according to which tendency. Now I want to go a bit deeper, which is to understand, “So I make some of these changes. Knowing the tendency that I have, how does that impact the deeper level of fulfillment, or happiness, or really a sense of joy being alive that I have as a person?
GR: Well, our habits are just—if we have habits that work for us, we’re just much more likely to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. Research suggests that about 40 percent of everyday life is shaped by habits. Habits are like the invisible architecture of everyday life. If you have habits that are making it hard for you to be happy, or to live a life of fulfillment or purpose, then that’s just going to get in your way.
Let’s say every night—here’s a habit that’s very easy to have. You work a really hard day, and between 11 PM and 1 AM, you’re scrolling through social media. You’re looking at websites or you’re watching bad TV on television to just sort of relax and have a little bit of fun time. But you’ve got a little kid, so every day, you’re getting up at 6:30. OK, so you’re chronically underslept. That’s going to back up on you. That is going to get in your way, because research shows that most adults need at least seven hours of sleep, and when you don’t get that sleep . . .
People adjust to it and think that they’re fine, but in fact, when researchers study them, they are very, very far away from their optimal self. They’re more susceptible to getting sick. They can’t focus as well. Their memory doesn’t work. It contributes to weight gain. You’re edgier. You don’t have the same patience and sense of humor. Then you’re tired. There’s a lot of things—maybe it would be fun to plan a party, but you’re too tired to plan a party, because you can’t face it because you’re chronically underslept. By getting a handle on these habits of everyday life, we really give ourselves the energy and focus that we need to do the things that will allow us to have happier lives.
TS: OK. I’m curious what you think of habits of mind and how to apply these Four Tendencies. Something like the habit to complain a lot inside, or the habit to—yes. Go ahead.
GR: Well, that’s a very interesting distinction, because in my habits book and in The Four Tendencies, I don’t talk about habits of mind, addiction, or things like nervous habits, because I feel like those are a different thing. I don’t talk about things like complaining [or] pessimism. Yes. I don’t. I feel like the strategies that I’m talking about are for concrete, manageable, external habits, because here’s the thing: we have a lot of control over what we do. We don’t have that much control over what we think, but by changing what we do, we change the way we think. If we act the way we wish we felt, often we will change the way we feel. It’s much easier to do that from the outside than to really go straight to the inside.
If you don’t want to complain as much, think about, “Well, why am I complaining?” and then tackle that from the outside. Rather than in your inside just being like, “I should complain less,” because that’s—I think that’s very hard. I can never do anything inside my brain, but I’m really good at doing things out in the world, and then it has the same effect.
TS: OK. Now, in your book that was previous to The Four Tendencies called Better Than Before, you talk about some foundational issues that we can tackle as part of habit change. You offered four: sleep, which is something you’ve referred to here; getting movement every day, and I think people are with you. “OK. These are things that I know I need: to get a good night’s sleep. I know I need to move every day.” Eating and drinking correctly, right, for my health, I think people are with you.
Then the fourth one you offered I thought was very curious. You talked about uncluttering as a fourth foundational habit. I thought, “God, there’s a lot of things that could have been the fourth habit here.” I nominated a bunch in my own mind, you know?
GR: What did you think? Oh, fascinating.
TS: Well, I thought: Is it how we relate to money? How we relate to media, television, social media? How about how we relate to work? There’s so many things, but uncluttering—I don’t know if I ever would have nominated it as one of the top four. I’m curious how you got there.
GR: Well, the reason that I picked it is that so many people over the years have said to me that by getting rid of the clutter in their life, they feel like they got rid of the clutter in their mind. As somebody said, “I finally cleaned out my fridge, and now I know I can switch careers.” There’s something about putting things in the right places, getting rid of things that don’t work or that you don’t need that gives people energy and focus. People over and over told me that.
One of the things—of all the resolutions for happiness that I’ve ever talked about—the number one thing that people specifically mention is: make your bed. This, they say, is the resolution that they followed that was the easiest and made the biggest difference. It’s clearly not the most significant thing you could do, but people over and over reported it. Things like the one minute rule: anything that you can do in less than a minute, do without delay. Over and over, people would say, “Oh, this totally changed my life. This totally changed my perspective, just getting rid of that scum of clutter.”
Now, one of the—because we were talking earlier about how people are different from each other, one of the things I realized is that some people are simplicity lovers and some people are abundance lovers. I’m a simplicity lover, which means I like bare surfaces [and] clean shelves. I don’t like that much on the walls. I don’t like having a lot of noise. I would never work with music playing. I don’t like a lot of choices. I’m a simplicity lover.
Then there are people who are abundance lovers. They like profusion, and choice, and collections, and they like a lot going on. Some people are abundance lovers, and so they like a lot of stuff around. But even abundance lovers don’t like clutter, because clutter is something that you—it’s things that you don’t need, you don’t use, that are broken or, “There’s this box in the hallway in my office, and it’s been there for five years, and nobody ever does anything with it because nobody knows who it belongs to. We’ve just been stepping over this box for five years.” That’s not abundance. That’s clutter.
If you have a bulletin board that has pictures of all your friends on it, that would drive me crazy because that’s too much visual noise for me, but you might love that. That’s not clutter because that’s purposeful. That’s a collection. You’ve gathered that together. You put a lot of thought into it, so that’s not clutter. Even people who like abundance, they don’t like clutter, because that’s just the junk that’s in everybody’s way.
It’s weird. People say, “When I got rid of clutter, I found it was easier to eat healthfully, or exercise regularly, or go to bed on time, or read a novel, or form a book group.” It’s just this weird connection that—I think you’re exactly right. It’s kind of surprising. The first three are very obvious. I agree, it’s kind of like, “What?” But this is just what I’ve observed. It really seems to help lay a foundation for good habits.
TS: Mm-hmm. Now, you also write in Better Than Before about taking the first step, just getting started. So even something we’re talking about that seems—honestly, to me, it seems a little inane, but I understand. Making your bed, I get it. It takes less than a minute. “Gretchen says that in her experience with people, it makes a really big difference. OK. I’m going to take the first step. I’m going to try it.” What do you know from the work you’ve done about helping people get started?
GR: Well, one thing is, once you’re ready to begin, start now. Now is always the best time to start. There are some times that feel particularly auspicious to people. So you can take advantage of that, if that feels powerful to you. Like New Year’s Day, or your birthday, or an important anniversary, or maybe the day after Labor Day. For me, September is the other January. I always feel like that’s a fresh start, and so that’s kind of an encouraging thing.
Another strategy that’s related to the start that’s very powerful but people don’t always take advantage of it is “clean slate.” Any time you go through a major transition—you move, or you get a new job, or you start a new school, or you have a new relationship, or even you paint a room—any time you go through a big transition, old habits are wiped away and then it’s much easier to form new habits.
If you’re going to do something like move, take advantage of that time. Or you start a new job, if you’re thinking, “Well, I start a new job. I want to give myself two weeks to settle in and then I’ll start going to the gym.” No! Do not do that. From the very first day at your job, you want to be having the habit of going to the gym, because you don’t have any other habits related to going to work yet because you haven’t gone to this job yet.
Now, if you put in that new habit right from the beginning, it will just be baked into your daily habits and it will seem much less arduous than if you tried to start it two weeks later, because then you’re like, “Oh my gosh. Usually, I get home by 6:30, but if I go to the gym, I don’t get home until 8. Oh, it feels so . . . I can’t stand it.” If you did it from the beginning, you’d just feel like, “Oh, well, this is how it is to have this job.”
TS: Mm-hmm. What do you find, Gretchen, are the biggest obstacles or things that undermine our progress, and is it different depending on which tendency we have—what undermines us?
GR: Well, it’s definitely different on the tendency, because if you are indeed a Rebel, I would say probably something that would undermine your habits is if people keep nudging you to do something. If I keep saying, “I thought you were going to give up sugar. Oh, are you really sure you want to have that cookie?” Or, “I don’t think we should be going to the ice cream store,” you’re going to be like, “Oh, really? You’re not the boss of me. Watch me eat this ice cream,” right? I should keep my mouth shut, because I’m not helping. But with an Obliger, it could be like, “Hey, we’re going to eat healthfully. You have to help me stick to my good eating habits, and I’ll help you stick to your good eating habits. We have to help each other.” So your tendency comes into play.
Then, no matter what your tendency: other people, definitely. Huge role that other people play. We are constantly exchanging habits back and forth among each other. Convenience and inconvenience. This, no matter who you are, this is so—it’s hilarious. Actually, they’ve done hilarious studies on how even things like if you have a salad bar and there’s tongs instead of spoons, people will take less food, because they just can’t be bothered to deal with the tongs the way they can with the spoons. Anything you want to get yourself to do, make it convenient. Anything you don’t want yourself to do, make it inconvenient.
One of the things—let’s say eating healthfully—one of the things that makes it hard is that it’s so easy to eat unhealthfully. “Oh, I’m going to the break room at work, and everybody has brought in a thousand pounds of Halloween candy. So I’m just going to stand here and eat 17 bite-sized candy bars without even really noticing, and I don’t even have to put money in a vending machine or go stand in a line at a store, because this is right here.”
There’s a million reasons why people struggle with their habits. Again, this is why you really have to think about yourself. Your challenges might be very different from someone else’s challenges, but once you took that into account, you could set things up for better success.
TS: Mm-hmm. Now you mentioned when I started asking about habits of mind, repetitive ways where our mind goes—that’s not really what you’re dealing with here. You’re dealing with more the physical habits that make up our life.
GR: Yes, concrete habits. Yes.
TS: Concrete habits. You also said that you don’t deal with addiction per se. I’m curious about that, because I think a lot of people might say, “It’s my current addictive habits that are really the most concerning to me.”
GR: Well, some people dispute whether addiction is even real, so I didn’t want to get into that whole controversy about, “Is addiction real? What is addiction?” Because then there’s people using addiction in kind of a technical way, and then there’s people just being like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so addicted to my cell phone,” in a kind of colloquial way. Certainly, for people who just feel like they want to get control of their behavior, then all my strategies are exactly what you would do. In terms of: Do you think you have a clinical addiction? I’m like, “Well, if that’s real, I’m not talking about it.”
TS: OK. I think part of my curiosity is I was thinking about the 12-step programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and all the other kinds of Anonymouses, and how, at a certain point, there’s this giving over of our personal will to a higher power that’s such an important step in the process of recovery. Such an important step to just offer up, “I’m helpless here.” A lot of your strategies seem much more centered on, “I’m going to understand and take charge and start doing things differently.” I wonder if you think there’s a role for this act of surrendering to a higher power in some way?
GR: Again, it’s 100 percent what works for you. I think for some people that’s highly successful, and for some people that’s not at the top of their list, you know? It’s the kind of thing where, if that’s a way of thinking that’s helpful to you, absolutely, I would never say that it’s not useful or isn’t helpful. On the other hand, if it’s not something that’s particularly powerful to you, then you could try other things as well. Again, I’m not talking about alcohol addiction, because do we get into different territory there? I don’t know, because I’m really talking about more quotidian-type habits.
TS: OK.
GR: Now, I’ve heard from tons of people who use it with addiction. Certainly I studied a lot of the strategies that people use to counsel people with addiction, because there’s so much there to learn for general habit, but I just would say that’s beyond the bounds of my expertise to tackle. If you find it useful, by all means, use it. But I’m not explicitly recommending it because it’s just outside my scope.
TS: Right. OK. You started studying happiness, and then moved to habit change, seeing how much our habits influence and affect how happy we can be on any given day. Where are you going next, Gretchen?
GR: Well, I still—there’s still a lot of stuff that people want about the Four Tendencies, so I’m writing a quiz that’s adapted for children. Many, many people have asked me to do that. There’s a lot of bits and bobs related to the Four Tendencies, so that needs to be done first because I really want to complete that—the life of that framework in the world. Then I think I’m going to write a little, strange book about color, because I’m obsessed with the subject of color. I’m just going to let myself do that as a little, fun, writerly project. Then I’ve got to figure out what my next big project is going to be.
I have a couple of ideas, so I’m in this super fun stage of just doing research right now and seeing what’s big enough, because the thing about a book is it’s got to be a big, big, big subject. I’m still 100 percent interested in everything that I wrote all the way back to my very first book, so it’s important to choose wisely, because it will be an intellectual companion for many decades. I’m excited to pick what’s going to be next.
TS: What’s your interest in color? What is it about color that interests you?
GR: Well, you know, it’s funny, on the Happier podcast, my sister and I talked about this idea of choosing a signature color, and ironically, neither one of us have ever been able to commit to a signature color. I heard from so many people about their signature colors, and it got me interested in thinking about color. It turns out there’s just this fascinating literature about color. I’m not interested in the physics of color or really the history of pigments, which is what a lot of—there’s all these weird paradoxical things about color, like we can’t really describe it in words at all.
Is there color in the world when you have your eyes shut? If there’s nobody in the room with you? Is there color behind your head? Where is color? Is color on object? Is it in light? Is it in the brain? Is it in the eyeball? Where is the color? There’s just all these koans and mysteries and crazy—mummy brown, there’s a color called mummy brown. It’s literally made from mummies! I almost fell on the floor. Literally, people would dig up mummies—human remains—and turn them into paint. There’s just all these crazy, weird—there’s killer wallpaper. That is real. There was green wallpaper in Victorian England that people died from because it was releasing arsenic. Just all this crazy, weird . . .
This is why it would be a strange little book, because it doesn’t really add up to anything. There’s no argument. It’s just like, “Color is cool. Color is weird. Let’s talk about color.” So it’s kind of self-indulgent, but so much fun.
TS: OK. Now, just as a wrap-up, I’m going to ask you: someone is listening to this, and they think they’ve done a pretty good job of figuring out which of the Four Tendencies they are just from this conversation. There’s some habit change they want to make in their life, and they’re going to get started. If you were to say for each type like, “OK, Questioner, here you go. Here’s a couple sentences for you. You’re off. Go do it.” What would you say to each type?
GR: OK. Upholder, you’ve got this. Go put it on your calendar, and you will execute. Good luck with that. Questioner, get clear. Do your research. What exactly are you asking of yourself and why? Have you decided this is the most efficient way for you to achieve your aim? Do that research. Get that confidence, then you will go forth. Obliger, you know you need outer accountability. Plug it in. Don’t pretend like you don’t need it. Don’t think that there’s anything wrong with you that you need it or it’s a sign of weakness. It’s the biggest tendency. There’s a lot of people in exactly the same boat. There’s a million ways to get outer accountability. Get yourself that outer accountability.
Rebels, you can do anything you want to do. You can do anything you choose to do. I don’t know if you can do it. I don’t know if a guy your age can quit smoking. I don’t know if you could actually write a novel in a year. You know, that’s a big challenge. Are you up for it? Give yourself the challenge. Show people what you’ve got. Remember what you want to be. You can do anything you want.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Gretchen Rubin. She’s the author of the new book The Four Tendencies, and also two New York Times bestsellers, Better Than Before and The Happiness Project. Thank you so much for coming and sharing with us your insights about habit change, Gretchen. Thank you so much.
GR: Oh, thank you. It was so much fun to talk to you. I really appreciate it.
TS: SoundsTrue.com: many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
