In today's solo episode, I delved into the intriguing concept of the Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. I share my own personal experience of discovering "The Happiness Project" at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon, which sparked my journey into personal development. This led me to explore Rubin's work and, in particular, "The Four Tendencies."

I discussed the four tendencies: the Obliger, the Upholder, the Questioner, and the Rebel, and how they respond to both internal and external expectations. Understanding these tendencies can shed light on how we meet expectations and interact within our work environments.

Knowing your tendency can provide valuable insights into how you approach tasks, goals, and accountability at work. Are you the Obliger, thriving on external accountability but struggling to meet your internal expectations? Are you the Upholder, readily meeting both inner and outer expectations? Perhaps you resonate with the Questioner, challenging external expectations to transform them into internal motivations. Or maybe you identify with the Rebel, navigating a unique approach to expectations by finding identity in personal choices.

The main points throughout this podcast include:

• The four tendencies: the Obliger, the Upholder, the Questioner, and the Rebel.
• How the four tendencies respond to both internal and external expectations
• How we meet expectations and interact within our work environments.
• The importance of personal development for success.

This framework can profoundly impact teamwork, productivity, and overall workplace happiness. I encourage you to reflect on the tendencies and share your thoughts. Which tendency resonates with you, and how can understanding it empower you to achieve your professional goals?

Do you have any feedback or thoughts on this discussion? If so, please connect with Aoife via the links below and let her know. Aoife would love to hear from you!

Connect with Happier at Work host Aoife O’Brien:

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Previous Episodes:

https://happieratwork.ie/85-why-delivering-effective-and-constructive-feedback-at-work-is-so-vital-with-aoife-obrien/

https://happieratwork.ie/209-cultivating-self-awareness-at-work-with-nia-thomas/

Mentioned in this episode:

Imposter Identity

Imposter Identity

Hello, and welcome to another solo episode of the Happier at Work podcast. I'm so thrilled you decided to tune in today. If you're watching the video, don't forget to subscribe. If you're listening on one of the podcast platforms, I'd love if you could leave a rating or a review. Thank you so much in advance for that. So today's podcast is a little bit of fangirling, if you like, and I want to share what I've learned from Gretchen Rubin. Now first of all, I want to set the scene. It was Portland in Oregon in the United States.

I was travelling all around on my way home from Australia. That was one of the places I wanted to check out. Absolutely loved it, by the way. So if it's on your list, definitely make sure to get there. They have this amazing bookstore called Powell's, It's literally the size of a block, and I mean a block in the United States sense. So it's the it takes up an entire block on the street. So they've so, so many books. Slight aside, I did come across an Irish English dictionary there, those old black and white kinds that if anyone who's listening in Ireland remembers those from school, they had those for sale there.

I can't exactly remember the price, but I remember taking a picture because I was so shocked and surprised to see it there. But one of the books that I came across while I was there is a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. And if you like, this was my first foray into personal development books. I picked it up. I read the back of it. I really liked it. And the whole premise of that book is to look at your happiness over the course of a year. So every month has a specific theme.

You might have some specific tasks to do that you can tick off, kind of like a habit checklist. But it was a really, really powerful book. And like I say, an introduction for me into personal development more generally speaking. Now before I got into podcasts or before I even knew what podcasts were, I had found this book. And from there, I don't know whether it was from there or hearing more and more people talking about podcasts, I started listening to her podcast which is called Happier. And when I say I devoured it, I mean I absolutely devoured it. This was before the time when I became aware of listening on 1.5 or 2 speed, which is what I do now. So I can devour as much content as I like in the podcast.

And, you know, there's so many podcasts out there, and I love listening to podcasts. And I really appreciate you listening to mine, by the way. And I started anyway by listening to that podcast. I think it was one of the only ones that I listened to, maybe that one, and I started adding in some more. But I really, really went through the entire back catalog of all of the episodes. I found them so inspirational. I found them so helpful. She started introducing shorter episodes as well, which were really beneficial.

Now I must admit I haven't listened to that podcast in a long, long time. And now that I'm saying it, I'm like, I must go back and check out what they're up to because I really, really enjoyed it. There was kind of a spin off podcast as well from it called Happier in Hollywood, and she set up a network on the back of having the podcast as well. That's not why we're here today. One of, so I mentioned that I got into personal development by reading that first book, The Happiness Project. And since then, Gretchen Rubin has released loads of other books as well. But one of those books in particular really struck a chord with me. It's called The Four Tendencies.

And in it, she goes on to explain how we react or relate to expectations that are placed upon us. And so if you think of this like an expectation can be placed by someone else, someone else gives us a task to do when they set an expectation of us, or we place an expectation on ourselves. So there's something that we want to achieve or we hope to achieve, and it's how we respond and react to those 2 different types of expectations, whether they come from external, from another person or whether they come from internally from within us. And I just love this as a framework, and it's something that I have shared with clients over the years. It's it's something that I've mentioned to anyone who is trying to understand about teamwork, for example. So I think this framework can be really useful in trying to get a better understanding of how people interact or how people respond when you place expectations on them. And expectations, I think, is words that I use a lot when I'm talking about happiness at work because one of the key things that we need to have are really, really clear expectations. So from an autonomy perspective, if you think about having autonomy, so you want to get on with your work, you want to do it where, when, and how you want to.

You don't want to be told what to do or how to do it. But in order to have that freedom, you need to have really clear expectations because the other side of having too little autonomy being told what to do, how to do it, when to do it, is having too much autonomy. So if you don't have clear guidance and expectations around what you're supposed to be doing so expectations is something that comes up a lot, and I think oftentimes as managers, and I put myself in this as well, we don't set really clear expectations. So that's kind of the context around expectations. So onto the 4 tendencies now, there are 4 of them, and I as I said, I love this as a framework. So number 1 is the obliger. Number 2 is the upholder. Number 3 is the questioner, and number 4 is the rebel.

So So let's start with the obliger first. The obliger, according to Gretchen Rubin, is the largest cohort of people, if you like. They are the kind of people who will respond readily to expectations that are placed on them by other people. So if you give them a piece of work and you set a deadline for them, they will respond very easily to that. They will work to that deadline. So it's about pleasing other people if you like. However, when it comes to expectations they place on themselves and I love that Gretchen Rubin uses the example, say, of a New Year's resolution. Now it's been a while since I've set a New Year's resolution for myself, but if you think of anything that you want to achieve in your life, the obligers in particular really struggle with meeting those inner expectations.

They need to have that outer accountability in order to be able to meet expectations. And, again, in her book, she goes into so much detail on what that might look like. You could get the help of an app. You could have an accountability buddy. You could set up some system where you have your your runners, trainers, sneakers, however you want to call it, placed by the door so that you don't forget. And they're there as a constant reminder that you are going to do this. So that is the obliger. The upholder then is someone who responds readily to both inward and and outward expectations.

So similar to the obliger, they will readily meet the expectations of other people. So if someone sets them a task with a deadline, no problem to meet that deadline. But they have the additional thing where if they set themselves a goal and a task that they want to achieve, then they will readily meet that expectation for themselves. They don't have to have that external accountability, so they don't need to have an accountability partner or anything like this. So just, I suppose, a note on the difference between those two and the really interesting thing. So Gretchen Rubin herself is an upholder. And the reason she came up with the framework, people used to ask her, well, how did you do that? Like, how did you write that book or how did you achieve whatever it was that she had achieved? And she said, well, I just decided to do it and I did it. And she couldn't really understand why other people don't just behave in that way.

But other people then, again, she is an example of someone in high school who used to go and, you know, I'm using the American terminology here. She used to go to track and and train and do running. But then when she was an adult, she didn't have that same passion because she didn't have the accountability of joining a team and running with the team. So I think it's really interesting from that perspective. I'm gonna explore that in a little bit more detail, but I want to share the last 2 now. So the last 2 are the questioner. So the questioner is someone who who readily meets expectations that they set for themselves, but they struggle with expectations set by other people. And this one in particular, I think, can be tricky because in the work context, in the work situation, and I can think of some very specific people that I've worked with in the past.

They question everything and it can be a real frustration for managers. It can be a real frustration when someone is in a team environment and there's someone who's constantly questioning everything that's going on. But the reason that those people are questioning is they need to turn that outward expectation into an inward expectation. So they need to be able to meet their own expectations, and so they're asking questions. The really positive thing about this is sometimes the obligers or the upholders will take things at face value. So if something comes down the chain, so to speak so if you get, a a task given to you by your manager, for example, and you don't question it, you just kinda take it as, okay, this is something we have to do. And then someone in the team is questioning, but why do we have to do that? Like, what is the purpose behind this? I think it's really useful to have that, to be able challenge back on the reason behind doing something. Sometimes, I get it, we just have to do stuff, but sometimes there can be bit of pushback and maybe we don't have to take on board everything that needs to be done.

So I think for me, that is one of the huge positives of having a questioner. Although, as a manager of a questioner, I know it can be in really, really frustrating to deal with all of those constant questions. But know that it's not coming from a challenging place. It's coming from a, I need to understand this so I can place the expectation on myself internally from that perspective. The final one, and for me I think the most complicated, is the rebel. And the rebel is someone who doesn't respond to internal or external expectations. So if someone places an, expectation externally, they will rebel against that. But equally, if they have an expectation of themselves, they will also rebel against that as well.

So it's really tough for the the rebels out there. And again, you might find that there are some people that you work with who are not really responding to deadlines or that they can't seem to find whether it's the motivation or whatever it is that they need. But one of the tricks that Gretchen Rubin talks about is, as a rebel, finding your sense of identity. So I am the kind of person who does this, and that helps to reconcile that idea of expectation. It's not an expectation. It's just who I am. So I suppose taking all of these together and thinking about it in terms of the dynamics within a team and in the work context, I'd love to know your thoughts. Is there anyone in particular that springs to mind when you think about these different types of profiles, these types of tendencies, or you? Which one do you think applies to yourself personally? Is it something that you struggle with? Can this help you to understand a bit more about what you need in order to achieve what it is you want to achieve? So, for example, if you are an obliger, maybe it it's not that you don't have the motivation, it's not that you lack the skill to do something, but you lack that accountability and you need to get that external accountability in order to move forward with whatever it is that you're doing.

So I'd love to know. Let me know in the comments below if you're watching on video on YouTube. Let me know on social media if you're listening across any of the social platforms or across any of the podcast platforms as well. I'd love to know what you thought of today's episode. What are you taking from it, And what's one thing that you're going to do differently? Thanks so much for listening today.