Truth (for me): “Discipline is my Freedom”

I just finished Gretchen Rubin’s The Four Tendencies. It was a quick read and interesting if you’re looking to learn about how to create habits and motivate yourself to achieve a specific goal or meet internal or external obligations or expectations.

You can also listen to her interview on the intersection between the 4 Tendencies and FI (Financial Independence) here.

Here you can take the short quiz and receive a PDF telling you more about your tendency: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, Rebel. Here is Rubin’s crucial insight:

“Depending on a person’s repsonse to outer and inner expectations, that person falls into one of four distinct types:

Upholders respond readily to both outer expectations and inner expectations

Questioners question all expectations; they must meet an expectation only if they believe it’s justified, so in effect they respond only to inner expectations

Obligers respond readily to outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations

Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike”

For each Tendency, one question matters most:

• Upholders ask: “Should I do this?”
• Questioners ask: “Does this make sense?”
• Obligers ask: “Does this matter to anyone else?”
• Rebels ask: “Is this the person I want to be?”

When working with each Tendency in collaboration to achieve a goal or meet an expectation, here is how to reach the person best:

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

When you encounter challenges, you’re more likely to be persuasive with each tendency if you invoke values that have special appeal to each Tendency:

• Upholders value self-command and performance
• Questioners value justification and purpose
• Obligers value teamwork and duty
• Rebels value freedom and self-identity

I am not sure I need additional suggestions on how to self-motivate to meet expectations because turns out that my tendency is… drumroll… an Upholder.

AN Upholder’s likely strengths include:

• Self-starter
• Self-motivated
• Reliable
• Thorough
• Sticks to a schedule
• Eager to understand and meet expectations

Possible weaknesses for an Upholder include:

• Defensive
• Rigid
• Often struggles when plans or schedules change
• Can seem humorless and uptight
• Uneasy when rules are ambiguous or undefined
• Impatient when others need reminders, deadlines, supervision or discussion
• Demanding
• May become anxious about obeying rules that don’t even exist

Much of this definitely resonates with me. Although, I don’t think I am quite so rigid about a schedule and needing rules. In fact, in that way, I think I learn more towards a Questioner often wondering why those rules need to be in place at all. And, I think that I can be humorous and flexible. But, I get the idea and definitely acknowledge that I see much of myself in this tendency.

When dealing with an Upholder (read: me):

• They readily meet external and internal expectations
• They’re self-directed, so they can meet deadlines, work on projects, and take the initiative without much supervision
• They enjoy routine and may have trouble adjusting to a break in routine or sudden scheduling change
• They hate to make mistakes, and because of that…
• They may become angry or defensive at the suggestion that they’ve dropped the ball or made a mistake
• They put a high value on follow-through
• They may need to be reminded that, unlike them, others aren’t necessarily comforted or energized by getting things done

When considering my career pivot from the perspective on my Tendency as an Upholder, I found this passage illuminating (although it’s not the first time that personality-typing has suggested something along these lines, see the 8’s strengths on the Enneagram):

“Upholders do well in roles that require people to be self-starters, such as starting a business, solo consulting, or freelancing because once they decide to meet an aim, they can work toward it without any supervision or accounability. Upholders have a deep capacity to make themselves do things they don’t feel like doing, which is invaluable for people who work for themselves and lack coworkers to help with the details or drudge work.”

I’ve been reading a couple books about side-hustling (100 Side Hustles: Unexpected Ideas for Making Extra Money Without Quitting Your Day Job), about the multipotentialite-life (How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don’t Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up) and about the start-up life (Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future) and been thinking a lot about what I could do as a job in the non-traditional career sense. It’s not that I feel like I can’t work for someone else. Maybe instead it’s just that I’ve learned that I don’t have to.

When reading about the other 3 Tendencies I have to be honest that I struggled to identify with them. I often found myself thinking, “man, that seems like such an odd way to operate” or “jeez, I wonder what that is like?” I mention this because being an Upholder is not nearly as common as being an Obliger or a Questioner (being a Rebel is least common of all). Therefore, I have to be cognizant of the fact that the majority of people that I interact with, in my personal and professional life, will probably be asking these same two questions about me and my Tendency 🙂

On to the next item on my To-do List!