Ever wondered why your best friend can organize her way out of anything, but you can’t follow the same processes she does?

We might just have an answer:

Gretchen Rubin has a system that involves what she calls the four tendencies. (Find the free online quiz here to identify your tendency here: https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/?fbclid=IwAR05fTL0NJEPsCUJ6OqGMJrm4EHY7tnHcXCmg56_HroP0qLkIhe0GOT5yL4)

Gretchen Rubin is one of today’s most influential and thought-provoking observers of happiness and human nature.

She’s the author of many books, including the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, and The Happiness Project. She has an enormous readership, both in print and online, and her books have sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide.

On her top-ranking podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, she discusses happiness and good habits with her sister Elizabeth Craft. (Gretchen is an Upholder, Elizabeth is an Obliger).

In this podcast episode, we’re talking about the four tendencies and how they each might deal with situations relating to organisation, overwhelm and others.

From Gretchen Rubin’s website:
One of the daily challenges of life is: How do I get people – including myself – to do what I want? The Four Tendencies framework makes this task much easier by revealing whether a person is an upholder, questioner, obliger or rebel.

By asking the one simple question, “How do I respond to expectations?” we gain exciting insight into ourselves. And when we know how other people respond to expectations, we understand them far more effectively, as well.

We all face two kinds of expectations—outer expectations (meet work deadlines, answer a request from a friend) and inner expectations (keep a New Year’s resolution, start meditating). Our response to expectations determines our “Tendency”—that is, whether we fit into the category of Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel.

Knowing our Tendency can help us set up situations in the ways that make it more likely that we’ll achieve our aims. We can make better decisions, meet deadlines, meet our promises to ourselves, suffer less stress, and engage more deeply with others.

Just as important, knowing other people’s Tendencies helps us to work with them more effectively. Managers, doctors, teachers, spouses, and parents already use the framework to help people reduce conflict and make significant, lasting change.

About the Four Tendencies
In just about any role we play—as manager, health-care professional, team member, teacher, coach, spouse, parent, or colleague, to name a few—it’s helpful to know our own and other people’s Tendencies. It’s hard to grasp just how differently we can all see the world. When we can see other people’s perspectives, we understand why, from their point of view, their actions make sense.

In a nutshell, remember:

Upholders want to know what should be done.
Questioners want justifications.
Obligers need accountability.
Rebels want freedom to do something their own way.

WATCH the recording of this episode (complete with weird faces) at

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