One of my favorite authors is Gretchen Rubin. I loved her book The Happiness Project, and her podcast Happier is one of the anchors of my daily commute to work. Not surprisingly, I was very excited for her newest book, The Four Tendencies.
If you haven't heard of it before, The Four Tendencies is Gretchen Rubin's framework for personality types. Everyone is either an upholder, an obliger, a rebel or a questioner, and our personality types determine how we handle expectations from ourselves and others. An upholder can meet outer and inner expectations, an obliger can meet outer expectations but resists inner expectations, a rebel resists all expectations, and a questioner can meet inner expectations, but needs a reason for it.
I'm an obliger - I could get up at 4:30 in the morning for crew practice because my teammates were counting on me, but can't get up just to go to the gym by myself. When I first read the book, it was a revelation. I took off the pressure that it wasn't my fault that I was slacking on my personal goals, I just hadn't made external motivation for them. But, as I reflect on the book more, I wonder whether this is just an excuse that I am making for myself. Could I meet inner expectations if I didn't think that I couldn't?
What tendency are you and do you find this to be helpful or an excuse?
