How To Be Happier - Gretchen Rubin

18:15Hunter Clarke-Fields:How do we stop procrastinating? So what were some of the habits that you changed that were some of the hardest habits and how did do you change them?

18:24Gretchen Rubin:So in my book, Better Than Before, I really focus on the 21 strategies that we can use to make or break our habits. And the funny thing that I learned from writing that book, and this was something that like now looking back at my books, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home I see, which is that I don't struggle that much with habit change. Habit change comes pretty easily to me. And I never knew why until I figured out my four tendencies framework, which you alluded to earlier. So habits change isn't that difficult for me, which is interesting. When I quit sugar, I quit sugar overnight. And I basically gave up carbs overnight.

18:55Gretchen Rubin:And I love that. That's like a whole separate story about like how I did that and why I did that. Are you still keeping to that? Yeah, it's been like five years now.

19:03Hunter Clarke-Fields:Wow. And so what are the differences? And this is like a health tangent, but what are the differences? Because I mean, I'm super aware of like the problems with sugar and my husband has issues with carbs. Yet, you know, we kind of walked sort of the middle path, but I'm curious about how did it change how you feel?

19:20Gretchen Rubin:Well, one thing is I have a real, real sweet tooth. And so that's all gone away. All that buzz, all that noise. Like, you know, I used to be like, oh, Halloween, I'm gonna eat all these bite-sized candies. One, two, three, today, tomorrow. No, I, you know, cause I don't eat candy. I don't eat candy on Halloween. I don't eat candy ever, you know? So it's just very, oh, I'm in a store where they have a big bowl of free chocolate. Do I eat one? No, I don't. Cause I don't eat chocolate. It's just so much easier. But this is one of the things that I talk, it's interesting, you've mentioned a couple of times the middle path.

19:48Gretchen Rubin:And one thing I found is that often the middle path is not the right path. It might be that one extreme or the other is better for an individual person. And one way that this comes up, and it certainly comes up with eating, or strong temptation is are you an abstainer or a moderator? So this has to do with when you're facing a strong temptation. Now, I'm an abstainer, as you can probably tell. I'm an all or nothing person. I can have no Thin Mint cookies, or I can have 11 Thin Mint cookies. I can have one bite size, you know, zero bite size Snickers, or I can have 10 bite size Snickers, but I can't have one bite size Snicker.

20:21Gretchen Rubin:And so for me and people who are like me, abstainers, it's easier to have none. It's, you know, once we say none, it's not a big deal, but once we start, it's very, very hard to stop. Then there are moderators. Moderators are people who get kind of panicky or rebellious if they're told they can never have something. They say, they say, I want to have it sometimes. I want to have a little bit. I have a bar of fine chocolate, and I'm just going to have one square fine chocolate every day or so. That's all I need. I'm going to follow the 80-20 rule. Now, that is great advice for you if you are a moderator.

20:53Gretchen Rubin:It is terrible advice for me. And a lot of times, I think in our culture, there's this idea that moderation is pleasant to the wise and you shouldn't be too rigid. You shouldn't demonize certain food. You shouldn't be too hard on yourself. That's good advice for a moderator. Abstainers like me, and I've heard from so many people who are like, oh my gosh, it's such a relief for me to know this is like a legitimate thing to do, which is just to give things up altogether. And moderators will say to people like me, you shouldn't be too rigid. It's not healthy to be so hard on yourself. And I say to moderators, why do you keep breaking your own rules?

21:24Gretchen Rubin:Why don't you just go cold turkey? It's so much easier. It's so much easier for me because these are just two different ways that people approach strong compassion. And most of us are a mix. I'm a moderator when it comes to wine. I can have half a glass of wine because I don't really like wine that much. But a friend of mine is like, I can have zero glasses or four glasses. There is no one glass of wine for me. And again, it's not that one way's right and one way's wrong. It's just that

21:46Hunter Clarke-Fields:I'm Gwen Washington from Snap Judgment, the storytelling podcast from KQED. Imagine an iconic piece of paradise overrun by one of the most horrific fires in recent memory. Everyone flees. Everyone except one person who decides to fight the flames alone. the moment when nature institutions and technology fail at the exact same time that's all systems

22:10Gretchen Rubin:down a new snap judgment miniseries from kqed tap to listen now one way is right might be right for you or easier for you than another way and just the and the idea that well because something works for you doesn't mean it works for me and then i just because something works for me doesn't mean that it works for you. And it's all about how do we find the approach to habit change that's going to allow us to thrive rather than trying to jam ourselves into a model of like, this is what Steve Jobs did. This is what my sister-in-law did. This, these are the like, you know, these are the, this is the best way to do it.

22:43Gretchen Rubin:I heard about a researcher who was trying to find the best way to change habits. And I'm like, that's a ridiculous, it's, there is no best way. It's what's best for an individual.

22:52Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like our, our diet too. Like we're all bio-individual, right? Like we all, I mean, we, we all have different genes, different cultures and all those things. And like, so there's no one best diet. I mean, it was kind of what we're seeing, you know, kind of to make that health analogy. Right. So, um, well, this is, this is fascinating because like, I love this because, um, one of the things that works really works well for me and that I teach a lot of, you know, thousands of people how to practice meditation and mindfulness and you tried meditation, right. And it didn't work for you.

23:23Hunter Clarke-Fields:Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

23:26Gretchen Rubin:Well, I've really tried it twice, like really good, solid tries. I think the last time I tried, I did it for five months and it just did nothing for me. It just, I'm like, this is just, I don't find this useful or helpful because I'm really good at making habits. It was like, I actually had to break the habit of meditating. So it wasn't the habit of meditating that was hard for me. I think a lot of people like to meditate, want to meditate and they find it hard to do it. I did not find it hard to be doing it. I just didn't find it useful for me. And again, I think that's, I'm not surprised by that because I think everybody's different and the challenge is to find like, well, what's true for me?

24:01Gretchen Rubin:What works for me? Not to beat myself up if something doesn't work for me.

24:05Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I love this, this idea of the abstainers and the moderators. And so, you know, listener, I invite you to think about like, what are you in what areas are you abstainer or moderator? Like maybe it'd be better for you to just be go cold turkey on certain things rather than that middle path. So through this work of this noticing, like this is how we change, these are habits, this is how we change habits. And wow, actually it's pretty easy for me to change habits. Is that how you discovered the four tendencies?

24:37Gretchen Rubin:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No, because one of the things was I had noticed, people would say to me things like when I went after the happiness project and happier at home, they would say, well, how did you get yourself to do these things? And I said, well, you know, these were things that I figured would make me happier. And so I decided to do them and then they did make me happy. So I kept doing them and they would, and they would look very puzzled and they would say, how did you get yourself to do them? And I was like, what do you, I don't understand what's the question. And then there were other patterns that I started to see like a friend of mine, this was like, hit me like a ton of bricks.

25:06Gretchen Rubin:A friend of mine said, I know I would be happier if I exercised. And 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? And I thought, well, why? It's the same person. It's the same behavior. At one time she had no trouble doing it. Now she's really struggling. How do you explain that? And then there were other people where I would say, a question that I often like to ask people is how do you feel about New Year's resolutions? Because if you're in the habit change world, like New Year's resolutions is a big subject.

25:35Gretchen Rubin:And a certain number of people would say to me almost verbatim the same thing, which was, I would make a resolution whenever it made sense for me, but I would not do it on January 1st because January 1st is an arbitrary date. And I thought, well, that's interesting because the arbitrariness of it never really bothered me, but like clearly to some, like this one group of people that is like very, very significant. So I was trying and trying and trying to figure out all these patterns. Um, and, uh, and that, that is what finally in this kind of glorious epiphany at this very desk that I sit at right now, I realized I saw how the four tendencies fit together and what the significance of these patterns was.

26:16Hunter Clarke-Fields:And it's about how we make changes in our life and things like that. Of course, I have done your quiz.

26:21Gretchen Rubin:Can I guess what you are?

26:23Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, yeah. Guess what I am.

26:24Gretchen Rubin:I'm guessing you're an obliger.

26:26Hunter Clarke-Fields:No. No. No. I'm a questioner.

26:30Gretchen Rubin:You're a questioner. Interesting. Yes. I'm a questioner.

26:33Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, no, no.

26:34Gretchen Rubin:You mentioned self-care. That's what tipped me off. It's like that's usually a sign of obligers, but you may have many obligers that you work with. And so that's why you brought it up is because you've worked with many people who raised that.

26:45Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, actually, it's true. Yeah. Self-care comes easily to me. You know, that's something that people ask me about. People ask me about all the time that I had to be like, wait, okay, well, what do I do? And why is this important to me? And, you know, this was something I really had to think about and figure out, you know, just like this kind of thing. So yeah, no.

27:06Gretchen Rubin:Self-care is an obliger problem. Upholders do not have that problem. Questioners do not have that problem. And rebels do not have that problem. I mean, they might slightly have that problem if they're like super overtaxed in their lives and they just really don't have enough time. But usually it's, if somebody raises, uses the term self-care, that is the big, um, and you did not use the word that is my, uh, arbitrary, which is the word that usually a questioner gets the word arbitrary very quickly. But, um, oh, so that's interesting that you're a questioner.

27:34Hunter Clarke-Fields:yeah yeah so but you well I want I'd love for you to explain of course what each one is but but um I think I have a I have a friend who is a big fan of yours I've she brings every one of like here's this look we can do this thing and she's so anyway um she has told me recently she said that most people are obligers is that is that true it's not most people it's the it's the

27:57Gretchen Rubin:largest tendency for both men and women, but it's not more than 50%.

28:01Hunter Clarke-Fields:So it's the largest tendency. Okay. So what are the four tendencies? Okay.

28:05Gretchen Rubin:So the tendency, what you're a tenant, you're either an upholder, a questioner, an obliger or rebel. And what this is, is how you respond to expectations, which sounds really boring, but it's actually quite interesting and significant. So we all face two kinds of expectations, outer expectations, like a work deadline or a request from a friend, And then inner expectations, my own desire to keep a New Year's resolution, my own desire to get back into practicing guitar. So depending on how you meet outer and inner, that's what determines whether you're an upholder, a questioner, a bledger rebel.

28:35Gretchen Rubin:Now, there's a quiz on my site. You can go to quiz.gretchenrubin.com. And there's a quiz, like a very quick free quiz, which I think 1.6 million people have taken. But most people don't even need to take the quiz. They can just listen to the description I'm going to give and they know what they are. So upholders 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 of them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important or more important.

29:02Hunter Clarke-Fields:So is that you? You're an upholder?

29:04Gretchen Rubin:I'm an upholder, which is why I say I have a pretty easy time for me habits. It's easier. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's easier typically for upholders. Then there are questioners like you. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they believe it makes sense. They resist anything arbitrary or inefficient or unjustified. They always want to know why. So they're making everything an inner expectation. If an expectation meets their inner standard for making sense, they'll do it no problem. If it fails their standard, they will push back. Then there are obligers. As we were saying, this is the one that the largest number of people belong to.

29:39Gretchen Rubin:Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So this is my friend on the track team, right? That's the pattern. When she had a team and a coach waiting for her, she didn't have any trouble showing up. But when she was trying to go running on her own, she struggled and this is why obligers have trouble with self-care because they're meeting All the outer expectations that are coming their way But when they have an inner expectation like I should read more I should, you know Make time for meditation because that's an inner expectation Um, it goes it's it's a challenge And so the answer like big reveal here for if you are an obliger and you want to meet an inner expectation You have to have outer accountability.

30:16Gretchen Rubin:That's what works for obligers And we should probably talk about that more because that's a really really big idea if you're an obliger and you can't meet an inner expectation, which is the definition of an obliger, give yourself outer accountability. And you will, if you want to read more, join a book group. That's how it works. And 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 they can do anything they want to do. They can do anything they choose to do. But if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist.

30:47Gretchen Rubin:And often they don't want to tell themselves what to do. Like they don't want to sign up for a 10 a.m. yoga class on Saturdays because they don't know what they're going to want to do on Saturday morning. And just the idea that someone's expecting them to show up is going to annoy them. And that is the smallest group. Rebel is the smallest. And in my group, my tendency, the Upholder tendency is only slightly larger. Those are the two kind of extreme personality types and they're pretty small. It's much more likely that people are questioners or obligers.

31:17Hunter Clarke-Fields:huh so it's almost like the the vast you know it's almost like a spectrum like where you you meet your inner expectations or you meet outer expectations and you kind of fall sort of on one side of that or the other is kind of what I'm getting from this well yeah and and within it

31:35Gretchen Rubin:like each tendency overlaps with the other two other tendencies and so you kind of that also So you're sort of, you said like a spectrum, it's kind of a range. So you're a questioner. So in some ways, questioners are like upholders because they both readily meet inner expectations. So you could be a questioner who tips to upholder, which is what my husband is. Or you can be a questioner who tips to rebels because questioners and rebels both resist outer expectations. That's what Steve Jobs was. He was a questioner who tipped to rebel. He wanted to know what was justified and he would be led by, he would be convinced by that, but it was very hard because his impulse to push back was because he tapped into that rebel side of him.

32:12Gretchen Rubin:So we each, it's like, which way you tip also influences how your tendency comes up. I'm an upholder who tips to question her. So my upholder-ness comes out in a slightly different way from an upholder who tips to obliger, but we're still both upholders.

32:25Hunter Clarke-Fields:So when we think about how we, you know, when we're thinking like, okay, you know, I want to go get enough sleep. I want to maybe do that update thing. I want to give warm hellos and goodbyes. I want to do these things that make me happy. We have to kind of take three steps back and say, but how do I, how do I get things done? How do I, how do I respond to expectations? And then say, okay, then, then how can I do it? You know, what can I do? I mean, it's interesting because I have a book club and, um, you know, and, and I could, I guess I could probably see like from who reads the book holder, right?

33:03Hunter Clarke-Fields:Or who's the obliger and who is it? Right. Because, uh, because who, who reads the book? So oblige, so obligers there, I'm sure there are a lot of obligers listening, um, who want to, who want to start some, some habits and especially moms, because there's so many, there's so many of us, you know, we get this kind of like mommy martyr thing, kind of pushed down our throats like, oh, you're a good mom. If you are self-sacrificing, you do everything for kids. But what we talk a lot about here on the Mindful Mama podcast is like, you're not great for anybody if you're not taking care of yourself, if your inner cup isn't full, if you're actually not making yourself your number one priority.

33:46Gretchen Rubin:So that is an obliger argument. Right there is an obliger argument because what you're saying is you must take care of yourself in order to be able to serve others more effectively. Now, to me, as an upholder, that is not a convincing argument. I take care of myself because I want to take care of myself. And I remember another thing that when I was coming up with the Four Tendencies, I had this very interesting discussion with a journalist who was a questioner like you. And she said, now, why is it that busy moms like us can't take time for ourselves? And I said, well, actually, I don't have any trouble taking time for myself.

34:17Gretchen Rubin:And she said, you know, neither do I. I was like, okay, why is there this idea that busy moms have trouble taking care of themselves. It's because obliger is a large tendency. It's a big group of people. So a lot of people feel like this. And a lot of people are like, doesn't everybody feel like this? And then there's a lot of people saying like, yeah, I feel the same way. But not everybody does feel that way. And so it's important to realize like, I'm experiencing this and that's completely legitimate and it's something to address, but it's not inherent in the situation. Part of it is my nature, which is coming up in the circumstance.

34:49Gretchen Rubin:And the answer, the solution or an obliger who feels that way. And there are many, many, many of them out there is outer accountability. If you want to go to bed on time, do not try to work on your inner motivation. Do not try to make yourself the priority. Do not try to get more motivated. Give yourself some form of outer accountability. Like you could tell your kids that they can stay awake as long as you're awake and they can only go to bed. Like, but they, that you, um, they don't have to go to bed until you go to bed. You're going to go to bed a lot earlier, right? Okay. That's not going to work.

35:20Gretchen Rubin:if your kid has a 7 p.m. bedtime, but if you had an older child, that could work. Or you could say to, you could set your alarm. Some obligers do feel accountable to things like auto responders or apps, you know, that will remind you. So obligers are very different in what they feel accountable for. And so you want to tap into whatever works for you. Often sweethearts don't make a good accountability partners because you're like, oh, I love you so much. You're like part of me. So I'm going to ignore you like I ignore me. So your sweetheart might not make a good accountability partner, but you can think about your future self, you know, Oh my gosh, Gretchen right now wants to stay up and binge watch game of Thrones, but future Gretchen is going to be so upset if she wakes up exhausted again.

36:03Gretchen Rubin:And this is going to the gym because she's so tired from staying up late. Um, you could, I, a thing that comes up a lot is wanting to get up on time as well. This is another obliter thing, especially if you live by yourself. And I heard the most hilarious one was a woman had a dog and she made a recording of her voice saying, Ginger, want to go for a walk? Ginger, want to go for a walk? And so the dog who slept in her bedroom would like spring to her feet and be like, this is amazing. Let's go for a walk. And then she said, I had to get up out of bed and take my dog out because Ginger is like looking so happy and excited.

36:36Gretchen Rubin:So again, it's like Blygers are very, very ingenious how they think about this outer accountability. We have to see like, how do you build that scaffolding in? How do you build in that outer accountability? That is what's going to, that's what's good. You know, if you want to exercise, you know, you go with a friend, you take a class, you work out with a trainer, you raise money for a philanthropy by doing a 5k. You think about your duty to be a role model for other people, a role model by doing good behaviors. I'm going to show my family exercises an important value because they're going to see me doing it.

37:04Gretchen Rubin:Or also I'm going to show my family that it's important to keep our promises to ourselves. And I'm going to tell my children, I'm going to do this and then I'm going to do it and I have to show them that it's important to keep your word to yourself. So I'm going to do it because my duty is a role model. Otherwise, maybe I would be tempted to blow it off. But we all know that that really does matter. People really are influenced by the way people in their household behave, like to a crazy degree. If you live in a healthy way, you're much more likely to create an atmosphere where other people will make healthy choices as well.

37:37Gretchen Rubin:If you give up sugar, the other people in your house will probably start eating. less. This is what happened to me. My family didn't decide to quit sugar or give up carbs, but over time they started eating a lot less because if one person in your house doesn't eat carbs, it's like, it changes things. So again, sometimes you don't, you can change things by changing yourself. You can change, you know, more people than yourself just by working on yourself.

37:59Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, kids are terrible at doing what we say, but great at doing what we do. Right. So, you know, I mean, and, and similar with our partners, right. As we change ourselves to change the way we react and respond, then they start to say, oh, okay, that might be working. That's working for you. I love this because you're bringing a very kind of mindfulness-based attitude to this, Gretchen, which is like you're bringing this attitude of curiosity and non-judgment about who I am and why I do the things I do. I don't have to be fit in this certain box. I don't have to do it the way Hunter does it.

38:33Hunter Clarke-Fields:I don't have to do it the way Gretchen does it. I just have to understand myself and work with my own tendencies, which is a very nonjudgmental attitude. And I really love that.

38:43Gretchen Rubin:And I think that term nonjudgmental is so important because when I talk to people about habits or happiness, a lot of times people are really caught in this like self-loathing or they're like, I have no willpower. I have no self-control. I'm not a real grownup. I'm not a real grownup. How come everybody else can use a to-do list and stick to a schedule, but I can't. Hey, that's not surprising. You're a rebel. Rebels often don't like to use to-do list. They often can't stick to a schedule. That's cool. Like there's a lot of great things about being a rebel. Let's find a different solution for you.

39:10Gretchen Rubin:Cause that doesn't work. Or somebody saying like, I don't understand, but why can't I keep my promises to myself? I, I never miss a promise to anyone else. What's wrong with me that I can't keep a promise to myself. Like, Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. It's totally to be expected. This is a very common challenge among obligers. There's no problem there. Let's just figure out how to achieve your aims. Cause there's a lot of ways to achieve an aim. Once we realize this is who you are. Or questioners, like, oh, I fall into analysis paralysis. I get so hung up on making the perfect decision.

39:35Gretchen Rubin:I can't decide. I can't decide. I drive everybody crazy. I drain myself. It's like, yeah, you've got analysis paralysis. This happens to questioners sometimes. There are solutions for that that questioners have come up with. Maybe one of them will work for you. There's nothing wrong with you. You don't need to change. You're fine the way you are, but let's figure out a different solution because something's not working for you. It's not your fault, but let's try something different because there's a lot of ways. If what you want to do is exercise, there's a million ways you can set that up. And maybe you're setting yourself up for failure without realizing it.

40:06Gretchen Rubin:And if we just tweaked things slightly, you'd have a much better chance of success. And so it's all, it's that, so I think you're exactly right. It's like, don't get judgy about it. Just figure out, okay, now, given what this list, given the truth about who I am and my situation, what do I try next?

40:22Hunter Clarke-Fields:Okay. And just kind of looking at ourselves as this like, you know, just like you did, like as this experiment. And let's try this and see how it goes and stick with it for a while. And so the sort of the questions about how do we change bad habits? How do we stick to new habits? It all just really depends on who you are and what type of person you are. Hey, it's Christy from Lululemon. I'm here at the office and we just dropped some really fun new summer colors in the Flow Y styles. If you're like me, you've loved the Flow Y tank and bra for years. and as of this year, it also comes in a dress and a crop tank.

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41:12Gretchen Rubin:Yeah, right, right. And one thing that's helpful is to think like, well, when have you succeeded in the past? Because like my friend, there was an important clue in the fact that she had been on the track team, right? But she didn't understand what the clue was. She didn't understand that it was about the outer accountability. So sometimes it's like, well, if you were really good about cooking, I talked to somebody who was like this. She was like, I hate cooking. I hate cooking. But she knew it would be healthier if she cooked. I was like, well, was there ever a time in your life when you did cook?

41:36Gretchen Rubin:And she said, well, actually, yes, when I lived in a group house in Washington, D.C., right out of college. And I used to cook there all the time. And so just talking to her about it, I realized what she didn't like to do was grocery shop. She lived with a roommate who loved a grocery shop. You know, some people just love the grocery shop. My husband's like that. and so there were all this stuff and and then so she had thought she disliked cooking but what she actually didn't like was shopping well that's a very different problem and she was able to very easily get out of the grocery shopping that she didn't like and then she was able to get back to cooking so sometimes it's like well look at your path um here's something else um speaking especially of health habits that i want to mention with obligers because this is a huge pattern among obligers and it's very confusing to them and to the people around them but it's a very very very common pattern, is the pattern of obliger rebellion.

42:22Gretchen Rubin:And this is when obligers meet, meet, meet, meet expectations. And then suddenly they snap and they're like, well, this I will not do. And sometimes it's kind of small and funny. And sometimes it can be huge and dramatic. Like I'm going to get a divorce. I'm going to end a 20 year friendship. I'm going to quit because I've had it. You're dead to me. This is over. And it's meant to help obligers by blowing up a situation. Like I can't stand this workplace anymore. It's so unfair. I'm being so taken advantage of. I'm just going to quit and let the chips fall where they may. It's meant to help them, but it can be very destructive because it's kind of out of control and it's sudden.

42:59Gretchen Rubin:And so it's very important for obligers or people around obligers, which is basically like everybody in the world, we all need to understand obliger rebellion, to understand when that deep resentment and burnout is building in obligers. Everybody else is on two committees. Why am I on 10 committees? Why am I always the one that has to take the extra shifts? Why aren't other people taking extra shifts? Why isn't my boss stepping in to protect me? Why isn't somebody insisting that I take my vacation? Why isn't anybody else helping to put away the groceries day after day after day after day? You know, once that feeling starts to build, it can lead to obligeration rebellion.

43:30Gretchen Rubin:Also often obligeration rebellion takes the form of health behaviors. With everything that everybody's asking me, how could you possibly expect me to exercise? With a boss like mine, there's no way I can eat healthfully, right? Because the rebellion is turned to the inside. And when you hear it in the obligers, when they, that anger, that resentment, that feeling that things aren't fair, that they're being exploited or taken advantage of, that's not good. Y 'all want to make sure don't take advantage of the oblige. They are the rock of the world. They feel like they're being taken advantage of and they are obligers.

44:01Gretchen Rubin:You are being taken advantage of because upholders, questers, and rebels, we go right to you because you are the one who's most likely to help a friend or help a colleague. Yeah. I'm thinking about like the school volunteer request.

44:15Hunter Clarke-Fields:There you go. There's so many, it gets crazy. And then I'm thinking who does this? I feel like moms are like this crazy unpaid workforce for the school system, the public schools, private schools alike. And that's something I give my clients permission to do. You don't have to say yes to those things. It's like, you don't have to, you can say no to those things. And maybe you should, I'm telling you, you should.

44:46Gretchen Rubin:Right, right. Well, so you could be holding them accountable, but there's other things that obligers can use in exactly that situation. Because as you can imagine, that very situation comes up a lot from obligers. They often find it hard to draw boundaries or to say no. Now I have to say, typically a questioner or a poholder or a rebel would say like, well, I don't get it. If you didn't want to do it, why did you sign up? yeah why are you doing it I don't understand why you're complaining because you're the one who signed up and it's like they don't understand that the weight the obliger feels so what an obliger can do is set up like a counter balance of accountability so you could say something like if I say yes to you I'm gonna have to say no to somebody else like my family and it's really important to my family that I'm there for dinner every night so I have to say no to you so I can say yes to them so that's like saying one way somebody is going to be disappointed I have to disappoint someone's expectations, who do I choose?

45:34Gretchen Rubin:That's back to your idea of mindfulness. I'm going to choose to say yes to the people that I want to say yes to. Or sometimes it's about drawing boundaries kind of in advance and maybe you even need to talk it over with a friend or somebody else who's going to help you like feel good about it. But you could say something like, if I volunteer for more than two committees during the school year, I'm going to feel overwhelmed and I'm going to have to let, and I'm going to feel like I'm going to lose my patience. I'm not going to do as good a job. It's going to be too much for me given every, all the other expectations I need to meet.

46:00Gretchen Rubin:So I'm going to say two and two only, and I'm going to decide that in advance. And then I'm going to tell my sister, my best friend, my husband, my kids, these are the two that I'm doing. Or you can always like call, you know, call a friend and say like, their talent, you know, I'm getting a lot of pressure from the, from the school, you know, to do this again. Do you think I have to say yes? And just call in a polder, a questioner, a rebel, and they will say to you, why would you, I do that all the time. I call my husband and I say, do I have to do this? And he's like, why would you do that? And I'm like, why would I do that?

46:30Gretchen Rubin:You know, sometimes you need to hear it from somebody else. Or if you were advising a friend, imagine yourself in the third person. If a friend called you and said, you know, I've on six committees and I've done it every year and I've been head of the book fair every year for the last seven years and they really want me to do it again. Do you think I have to do it again? Your friend's going to say no. And sometimes for an obliger, even imagining themselves advising some beloved person lets them say, yeah, you can say no. You need to say no.

46:59Hunter Clarke-Fields:So one of the questions I get a lot is about chores and how do we get our kids to do chores and things like that. And part of it, from what I'm getting from you here, is this inner work of saying, when I say yes to doing all the things for my child or children, maybe making that argument to ourselves, like when I say yes to doing all these things for my child, I'm saying no to them being capable and, and, and having, you know, resilience and life skills and all of those things. So, so the, the, I am almost, I am obliged to teach and help my kids to get their, their own stuff done rather than just put away the dishes myself, which would take three minutes.

47:43Gretchen Rubin:So what, and, and what the, the, the ruse, and again, this doesn't appeal to me because I'm an upholder, but this is something that many obligers have said to me. I'm training my child because I don't want my child to go and be the horrible college roommate.

47:55Hunter Clarke-Fields:I've heard this dozens of times.

47:57Gretchen Rubin:And I'm like, that's so funny because I never thought about my daughter as a future college roommate. That future never occurred to me. But many obligers are like, well, you have to train them to pick up after themselves and do dishes and how to do their own laundry. Because what if they're going to be this horrible college roommate? This seems to be a very, very compelling argument. So that's a reason. And it's very true. You're going to be a much better spouse if you learn how to pick up after yourself, you know? So you're exactly right. Think about that outer accountability. But here's the other thing.

48:26Gretchen Rubin:And I mean, this is kind of a side note. This is about shared work and chores and stuff. And this sounds so obvious that I kind of hate even to say it, but it's just so true. And obligers need to hear it more than anybody. If you do not want to do something, if you feel that you should not have to load the dishwasher, or you feel that you should not have to pick up wet towels off of a child's bed and put them on the rack. Don't do it. Amen. Don't do it. If you do it, this is a situation that works great for everybody other than you, because the work is getting done. Don't do it. And the fact is a lot of times obligers feel like, oh, I've been making coffee in the office for a month now.

49:09Gretchen Rubin:Doesn't everybody feel like they ought to take their turn? No, they don't. Because you've been doing it for a month, they probably think it's your job or maybe they think you enjoy it or maybe it never even occurs to them to wonder who makes the coffee they think that they think the office elves make the coffee who can know they got other things on their mind so the idea that that other people are like kind of keeping track and feel guilty or like feel like they're going to have to step in and relieve you um or that they're ever going to think about that wet towel again if it disappears into the bathroom they never will you You've got to just let the things go undone.

49:41Gretchen Rubin:Now this is harder. This is easier said than done. I recognize it. And you might say like, well, it's one thing to have the wet towels on my child's bed, but my husband leaves the wet towels on my bed. That's making my bed wet. And it's like, well, either you figure out a way to get him to do it or you do it yourself or you suffer the consequences. Those are the three choices. But if you keep doing it, just kind of like, you know, that works. And maybe it's not worth fussing with. A lot of things I'm like, you know, I want it this way because this is the way I want it. I don't like, and nobody else cares.

50:12Gretchen Rubin:I hate dog toys on the door. I spent half my life picking up dog. My dog is one of these dogs who really likes dog toys. A lot of dogs don't, but my dog really likes dog toys. And I'm like, I could badger other people to deal with this and to help. This is not worth it. I'd rather just put the dog toy. It's like the easiest task in the world. I find it kind of get a weird, weird satisfaction from it. I'm just going to decide to do it myself because that's what I want done and not get into it as like being a household chore because it's just not worth it. That is not worth it. Other things are worth it.

50:42Gretchen Rubin:This is not worth it. Not everything's worth it.

50:44Hunter Clarke-Fields:And so this is beautiful because again, you're asking people to take a step back and have that self-awareness and practice that self-awareness to say, all right, these are my three choices. You know, that's maybe you have to have that conversation. That's where the skillful communication comes in that we talk about a lot here. But, or, and then knowing myself, this matters to me. this doesn't matter to anyone else like this is this is that self-knowledge like just have these clarity to make these choices and then when we can make the choices in clarity then we can let go of a lot of the resentment which the resentment is often like stories in our head like what you're describing with this person in the office these are stories in your head that you're making up that are not necessarily true right you can live without those stories you have a whole this is

51:33Gretchen Rubin:the thing that I think like you're in the center of like a whole thing and they're not even like you have not even crossed their mind like it's not even on their radar but the thing about about mindfulness and like the clarity I mean an example that I love is like does something even need to be done at all some things maybe don't need to be done at all and I there was a great example from a mother who was saying she had five kids and she was driven mad because her children would pull their jeans off and they would go inside out and their their children and her children would not take the time to like pull the jeans inside out.

52:02Gretchen Rubin:And she said, Oh, and the underpants stuck. She's like, I spend half my life inside out. And then she said, finally, it occurred to me, just wash them inside out, put them in the drawer inside out. You can wear them inside out, or you could turn them right side in up to you, but you do it one way or the other. I'm not doing that. You can do it. And it doesn't make any difference to the washing and putting away thing. and I was like of course it's like you but they're never going to do it while you're doing it like because every time they get reached for a pair of jeans they're fine like why would you know they're just not going to change unless they're probably an upholder would do it just to be like because that's the rule but it's like this is work that doesn't need to be done you don't have to do this work or like a teacher emailed me saying oh I spend so much time shredding my student essays and lesson plans and I'm like why are you shredding that like this is not bank information like Like there's no one out there like stealing the identity of your third graders, like stories about their summer vacation.

53:00Gretchen Rubin:Like that's not sensitive information. You don't need to shred that. Just put it in the recycling. It's like, that's just make work. You know what I mean? So part of it is like, why am I even doing this? Because sometimes it's like, you get into these habits. It's like, yeah, you don't even need to do that at all.

53:14Hunter Clarke-Fields:Amen. Amen. I love it. I love when people get permission to say, just don't even do it. Don't do it. I love that. I love that. So I think the listeners, hopefully having as many wonderful ahas here as I am, I'm really appreciating this. You should absolutely figure out obviously which tendency you are. Go take Gretchen's quiz. We'll link to it in the show notes. And I really, I just want to say to you, I really appreciate your work. I appreciate your hacks, the way that you take some ideas, you take them to and say them in a way where it's really, people can hear it. And I think that's a really a beautiful gift that you have of making all these things kind of like down, down to earth and, and down to, and not taking kind of, kind of, you take like these everyday things and you look at them in a, in a beautiful way, elevating them, you know, like these things, the way we live our everyday life matters.

54:11Hunter Clarke-Fields:You know, they say the way we live our everyday is the way we live our life. Right. So, and you're, that's kind of what I see you doing there with your work. So is there any words of wisdom you want to leave the listener with or anything you're working on that you'd love to share with them? And of course, where can people find you?

54:27Gretchen Rubin:Oh, yeah. Please come to my website, GretchenRubin.com. And there's lots of resources there and discussion guides. And you can read about all my books about kind of happiness and good habits and human nature. And there's a lot of stuff there to help if you're trying to change a habit or whatever. And then I have my podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, where my sister and I, my sister's an obliger, we talk about, and very messy. So we talk about happiness and good habits and each week and that's tons of fun. And my book, as I said, that's actually the 10th anniversary of the happiness project is coming out.

54:58Gretchen Rubin:That's an exciting milestone. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years. And then I have a book, my book, Outer Order, Inner Calm, which is all about basically organization and decluttering, which your husband, it sounds like he's a, he's also like in that mode with me. That's coming out in March. And I'm really excited for that book because people just get so fired up about clutter clearing. It's kind of funny. It's so energizing. It just makes you feel like you could do anything, cleaning out your coat closet. Why does that matter so much? And I love to engage with readers and listeners and viewers on social media.

55:34Gretchen Rubin:I'm everywhere as Gretchen Rubin. So I love hearing from people about their insights and observations and questions. So I got a ton of stuff out there if you're interested in happiness or human nature.

55:45Hunter Clarke-Fields:Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you, Gretchen. And again, I really appreciate your work and what you brought to the table. Lots of great stuff here. I hope that everyone, every listener, you know, go and figure out your tendency. When are you? And then let us know. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Mama podcast.

56:03Gretchen Rubin:Oh, I so enjoyed it. Thanks so much for having me on.

56:10Hunter Clarke-Fields:Thank you so much for listening to the Mindful Mama podcast. I loved talking to Gretchen. I love her suggestion to make those easy changes first, going for the low-hanging fruit and, you know, how to draw boundaries and when to simply just stop doing something. It's so beautiful. I love that. Love that so much. So please get in touch with me if you like this episode. Share the episode. Of course, subscribe to the episode, to the podcast. This tribe is growing. we have had almost 200 ,000 downloads now. And I want to thank you for sharing it with your friends and sharing these episodes that mean a lot to you and reaching out to me and connecting with me over the episodes that mean a lot to you.

56:57Hunter Clarke-Fields:That means so much to me. You have no idea. So it's awesome. So thank you. Thank you for that. Reminder, I am enrolling my Mindful Mama Transformation coaching groups. It's a small group coaching program for an intimate group of women. We will do an evening group and we will do an afternoon group. It's for people all around the world and it's about transforming your experience of every day. So if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired and you really want to feel grounded, you want to heal, grow, you want to radically improve your parenting communication skills and your relationships, then I invite you to check it out.

57:39Hunter Clarke-Fields:And I'm also happy to hop on the phone with you and talk to you about it personally. So do check it out at mindfulmamamentor.com slash group coaching. That's mindfulmamamentor.com slash group coaching. And that's it for this week. I really so glad we got to connect. If this episode was helpful, please do share it around. Next week, we are going to be talking again to Dr. Dan Siegel. He's got another amazing book out. So we're going to talk again to Dan Siegel, which is so cool. And I'm just wishing you a beautiful week. I'm glad to connect. I hope this podcast, this sharing has helped you. Coming soon, we might have a way for you to help support the podcast and keep it ad-free.

58:24Hunter Clarke-Fields:We've been debating sponsors, no sponsors, and I do want to keep it ad free. So you're going to hear a way to support the podcast soon. But if you're interested, do check out the group coaching, mindfulmamamentor.com slash group coaching, the programs now, this is what supports the podcast. So this is a great way for you to transform your life and support this podcast that hopefully you've gotten some things out of. I don't know. Anyway, wishing you a beautiful week, my friend, wishing you some moments of peace, some equanimity through the hard moments and some release, some quiet, and some sparks of joy.

59:03Hunter Clarke-Fields:Namaste.

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