Gretchen Rubin

Master of Happy Gretchen Rubin says we should automate our aspirations. What does that mean?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The overall message to me that I value so much
is just try stuff, Just experiment. Your life is very plastic.
You can try it for a short period of time,
you can try it for a long period of time.
There's stuff you can do as part of your ordinary day.
You do not need to quit your job. Hey, guys,

(00:32):
thanks for listening. This is You Turns, the podcast about
change where we talk about all kinds of changes, transformations,
shifts in a quest to make ourselves, if nothing better
and happier. I'm Lisa Oz and I'm Jill Herzick, and
we've got someone who is probably the most qualified person
to tell us how to be happier. We are so

(00:54):
excited to have Gretchen Reuben with us. High Gretchen, Hell,
I'm so happy to be talking. So I'm so glad
you're here. Um. Gretchen, as probably everyone knows, is the
best selling author of eight books, including giant bestsellers like
Better Than Before, the Happiness Project. The most recent one,
I think is The Four Tendencies. Um. She also has

(01:14):
one of the most popular podcasts out there, Happier with
Gretchen Ruben, which she does with her sister. You guys
are incredibly close Elizabeth Kraft, and I think my favorite
part of that podcast is that not it makes clear
that not only do you experiment on yourself in pursuit
of happiness, but you experiment rigorously on your sister. Yes,

(01:35):
I do. Yes, Alissa's calls me a happiness bully. Yes,
a very loving one, very loving. But I she sometimes
it's kind of the the innocent bystander of all my experiments.
And you know, I think she puts puts herself squarely
in the way of them, though, which means that some
of them have to have worked out well for her. Yes,

(01:56):
she definitely does. No, she definitely does um and and
it has worked out, has worked out well. But I
can sometimes sort of exhaust her with my Do you
ever have a bad day where you're just being cranky
and obnoxious and have her call you out on it
and say, Kritten, you're not allowed to be unhappy? Oh?
Oh no, no, no, you know it's funny. One of

(02:16):
the things about being happier is that is to acknowledge
when people aren't feeling happy and to like, you know,
not fight against it. That's one thing, especially with my
children I learned, is like, really, don't don't say to
them things like, well, you're not scared, or this is
always fun, or you love to go you know here
there um and and uh and and the people I'm lucky,
the people in my life or not. They don't expect

(02:38):
me to be UM to be happier all the time,
for sure. So part of being a happiness bully is
also knowing when to say, yeah, that sucks, I'm sorry,
it is it is it is um and just to
let people have their negative their negative emotions and not
try to talk them out of it. I mean. The
funny thing is, and I read about this person this

(03:00):
wonderful parenting book. It's like my favorite, one of my
favorite really books about all like human relations because it's
so applicable to adults as well. But it's a book
called um how to Talk so kids will listen, and
listen so kids will talk. It's like thirty years old.
It's a great book. I've read it like ten times.
But one of the things they said is acknowledge the
reality of other people's feelings. Don't try to tell people
they don't feel the way they're telling you that. And

(03:21):
that sounds so sensible. You're like, I would never tell
somebody they don't feel the way they feel, and then
you think about it. And when I thought about the
kind of things I said, I was constantly telling people, Oh,
it's fine that the cable guy was two hours later, like,
what's the big deal. It's like somebody's telling me they're
really annoyed. Just let them be annoyed, saying, wow, you're
really annoyed about that. It's very simple, but um, and

(03:41):
then you get out of this kind of arguing with
people about the reality of their feelings, which and and
get and they feel much more understood. And then the
funny thing is that then they stopped complaining or you
don't need to keep saying how negative you feel because
you don't because you know that other people understand the
reality of your feelings. It's fine. Is that part of rumination,
which seems like the big enemy we all struggle with,

(04:03):
but some of us more than others, is that it's
in part do we ruminate in part because we don't
feel like it's being hurt or there's an outlet for it.
You know, that's so interesting. I never thought about the connection,
but I bet that's exactly right. Um, Because one of
the things, like they say with rumination is to just
write it down, and that if you write it down
a lot of times, that will help relieve your mind

(04:24):
or you feel like it's memorialized in some way, so
you don't have to keep going in that circle. Um.
But I bet if somebody would say to you, like, oh,
I see that you're feeling this way and kind of
help you through it, that might help end that cycle
of just like that's that's circling, those circling thoughts that
could be so draining. Yeah, those those are absolutely the worst.
And you know sometimes I feel imprisoned in a room

(04:45):
with this just nasty batch and you know she's just
she's just got these thoughts and she's got me running
around in circles, and you know, you just want something
to let you out of that room, let you let you,
let you free. Um, alright, so everyone is free you
to have a bad day. That sounds that sounds good.
That sounds good to me. So um we as we

(05:06):
as we do every time we're talking about change. And UM,
I kind of wanted you to run through a little
bit the four tendencies, which you've brought up a couple
of different books and you've developed through tons and tons
of research, and and there are these four tendencies. And
I want to sort of think about change specifically, like

(05:27):
how how people who belong to those different tendencies how
the handles change. Yeah, and I think that's a great
question because I think it's I think knowing your tendency
or someone else's tendency really can point the way to
making positive change if you want to make change, or
understanding why change is not happening if you wanted to happen. Um.
So there, as you said, there are four tendencies for

(05:49):
personality profiles upholder question or a blager and rebel um.
And it has to do with how you respond to expectations.
And so we all faced two kinds of expecting sations,
outer expectations, which is like, um, I have a work deadline,
I have a request from a friend, or inner expectations
like I really want to write a novel in my
free time, I really want to keep my New Year's resolution.

(06:12):
And and so the four tendencies look at how you
respond to outer an inner And I will say that
most people can can know what they are and the
people in their life from the brief description that I'm
about to lunch into. But if you don't, if you
want to take a quiz and like get the answer given, Yeah,
there's a quiz on my site Gretchen Reuben dot com,
or you can go to happier cast dot com slash quiz.

(06:34):
It's a short, free quiz and it will tell you,
um what your tendency doesn't give you a little report
on your tendency if you want it. Um But like
I say, most people know what they are pretty quickly.
So upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. So they
meet They meet the work deadline, they keep the New
year's resolution without much buss. They want to know what
other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves
are just as important. Then there are questioners. Questioners question

(06:58):
all expectations, so they do something if it makes sense
to them. So they're making everything an inner expectation. If
it meets their standard, they'll do it, no problem. If
it fails their standard, they're going to resist. And they
will very often object to things that they consider arbitrary
or inefficient or irrational. They're always looking for reasons, justifications.

(07:18):
Then there are obligers. Obligers readily meet out our expectations,
but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So this is
the person who's like, why is it that I can
meet my commitments to everybody else, but I can never
keep my commitments to myself. That's an obliger. And then
finally rebels. Rebels resist all expectations at or an inner life.
They want to do what they want to do in

(07:39):
their own way, in their own time. They can do
anything they want to do. They can do anything they
choose to do, but if you ask or told them
to do something, they're very likely to resist um. And
so those are the four tendencies, otherwise known as the
self employed. Often yeah, yeah, well so you said they

(08:00):
can do anything. They they have inner motivation, but that's
also the question or the rebel has problem with inner
motivation too. Well. See it's interesting, like you put your
finger on something that's like, that's very very it's kind
of subtle. So meeting your inner expectation is like I'm
going to I want to get strong. I'm going to
take a strain once a week. I'm going to go

(08:20):
to strength training for an hour every Friday at ten am.
I'm gonna meet with my trainer and I'm going to
work out and I'm going to get strong. That's what
a questioner could do with inner expectation or an upholder,
because that's an inter expectation. I'm going to do this,
I'm gonna go or like I don't even need to
do with meet with a trainer. I'm just gonna go
to the gym once a week at ten am, and
I'm going to do this. But a rebel wants to
choose to do it in the moment, like they put

(08:42):
a bunch of higher value on spontaneity. They don't. They
can't really lock into an inner expectation in the same way.
For them, it's much more like, well, what do you
feel like doing right now? So they need to set
up expectations in a different way because they can't really
Like I remember, because I'm an upholder, and upholders and
rebels are like the opposite of each other. And rebel
said to me, I only want to do the things

(09:04):
that I want to do, and I could do anything
I want to do, And I was like, see, to me,
I can do things I don't want to do, and
there's power in that. But the rebels, like, who wants
to be able to do. Why do you want to
make do stuff you don't want to do? And I'm like,
you want to do stuff you don't want to do.
It's like it's it's this subtle thing because the ability
to fall through on an inner expectation looks very different

(09:27):
in a rebel than it does in a questionnaire. Do
appolders get more done? Uh? If they want to? Yes,
they're They're the ones that will probably typically be the
most focused on execution. Yeah. Well, it's so funny because
I thought I wasn't a Bliger. I was pretty positive

(09:47):
I was some Bliger and then this one over here
tells me no, and and I was sort of coming
to that thought. But so this is the thing. Upholders
and the Bliger's can look very much alike because they
both readily meet outer expectations. And what many a Blazers
have done is they sort of figured this out about themselves,
and so they very cleverly create outer accountability for every

(10:10):
inner expectation they want. Um. So like, if you want
to read more, you've joined a book group. If you
want to exercise more, you joined a class where you
have to show up. And so so upholders and a
bligers can look very much like. So here's the question
I would ask to you to get out, whether you're
in a polder in a blazer, if there's something that
you want to do for yourself and nobody else cares
and in fact, maybe it's kind of inconvenient for them,

(10:31):
Like you want to go for a run every Saturday
and Sunday morning at ten am, or you want to
take three hours to yourself every Sunday afternoon and work
on your novel, or at work, you've decided, you know what,
I need a break every day, and I'm just going
to take lunch away from my desk. And maybe you'd
like to have a staff meeting at noon, because that
works for everybody. But you know that doesn't really work

(10:51):
for me because I have this commitment to myself that
I'm gonna I'm gonna take an hour break from noon
to one every day. So I can't. I can't accommodate
what you want me to do. Could you do that?
Or would you be like, oh no, that would be
really hard for me to do that. So I don't
have a lot of those things, those things that feel

(11:13):
like I simply must uphold them. But the few that
I have I do upholds like pointing and laughing. There's
just a lot of like I'm going to leave my
husband and children and go hiking across California for two weeks.

(11:34):
I did that. I felt very strongly that I needed
to do it, and um, you know, I made sure
that my husband was okay with it. But then yes,
I did do it. I did this crazy backpacking trip
and just just because I really strongly felt like doing it.
And the truth is that I was between jobs, so
I kind of could and there wasn't There weren't a
whole lot of people expecting from me, but but there

(11:57):
were some alright. So we have established I think that
I am an upholder. When we come back from this break,
we're going to talk about how all four of the
tendencies deal with change. Oh good, we're talking about the

(12:18):
four tendencies with grection, Reuben, and we've established I think
that jail is probably enough holder. Um, and you said
you're an upholder too, right, We're a we're tendency. So
that's it's good. Well, I like meeting another upholder there.
It's a little club of up holders. So every group

(12:39):
needs to understand themselves and how to motivate themselves because
we all need to make changes in our life. We
all need to take action and to deal with change
when changed change, and not all of us are so
easily motivated as you two of holders, both internally and
externally for the rest of us. Um, how can you

(13:00):
breakdown how each group can can actually get themselves to
act right? Um? So let's let's take an example, just
to be concrete, Like, let's say that somebody wants to
make the change of starting to exercise, which is something
that many many people would like to do. Um. And
it's a pretty significant change that you would make in
your life. So let's say you're a question er. Now,

(13:22):
questioners always want justifications and they when they and they
want reasons, and once they're convinced that something makes sense
for them, their actions will follow pretty easily. So when
I talk to somebody who is a questioner who's saying,
you know, the thing is like I keep I know
I would be happier and healthier if I exercise, and
I really want to, but I'm not making progress. I'm
not able to do it. But I always say to them,
is have you gone deep into your question your self

(13:44):
and and figured out for yourself that you're truly convinced
that this is the most efficient way, the best way
for you to achieve this aim. And so you know,
because like you're trying to exercise, you're like, well, said,
I do strength trainings, that I do height side doing
intensity interval training. Should I do cardio? Maybe I should run?
Maybe be better to go for a walk. You know.

(14:05):
It's like when questioners are in that place of indecision,
that's when they become paralyzed, and they sometimes will suffer
from analysis paralysis, which is when they want more and
more and more information. So it's a questions like well,
I keep reading book after book and article after article
about what is the best way to exercise? And so
you have to say to a questioner, Okay, you it's
better to start exercising now than to wait forever. Take

(14:28):
your best guests, try it, see if it works for you.
If it doesn't work, then you learn something about yourself.
Questioners often like kind of experimenting on themselves, kind of
self hacking. They like collecting data, see how it works,
but really go deep into that place of like what
is your reason? Why are you committing to this? Like
why are you choosing this instructor, why are you in

(14:50):
choose choosing this method? They love things to be efficient,
so once but once they make that decision, once they
they've decided that something's justified for them, then they accents
can follow. So so when when a question is having
trouble with a change like that, I say, try to
find the reasons for what you want to do. Once
you have that clarity, it will follow. Obliger is absolutely simple.
And if obliger is having trouble meeting and inner expectation

(15:13):
like I need to go, I need to exercise more,
what they need is out our accountability. Do not say
things like I need to make myself a priority. I
need to learn to take time for myself. I need
to establish boundaries, I need more self care. Nothing no, no, no, no, no,
you know. Oh I give a d and ten percent
to my patients. There's nothing left for me. This is
obliger talk. I get it, I understand it. And the solution,

(15:35):
the really quick, easy direct way, is to create out
of accountability. So if you want to exercise, work out
with a friend, who's gonna be annoyed if you don't
show up take a class, but they take attendance, UM,
work out with a trainer who's expecting you. Think of
your duty to be a role model for other people.
Think about your future self. Now Gretchen doesn't want to exercise,
but future Gretchen is going to be really disappointed and

(15:56):
annoyed if now Gretchen doesn't do it. You cook yourself
to outside. Yeah, it's like your kid, like if I
don't you know, I need to exercise the way you
need to do your homework. Hey, and if I don't
do my exercise, you don't have to do your homework,
and your kids will watch you like a hawk, you know.
I mean, there's a million ways to create ou our
accountability once you realize that's what you need. But a

(16:16):
lot of times the Bligers don't know that that's what
they need. Sometimes they kind of intuited or they just
sort of accidentally get it because the world often will
supply us without our accountability, but they don't know that
that that's what they need to plug in. So that's
for Bliger Bligers having trouble, I'm always like, go right
to our accountability. UM. And then for a rebel, it's
interesting with rebels, there's sort of two ways to be

(16:37):
the toughest ones right well in a way. But the
thing about rebels is they can do anything they want
to do, so maybe changes. So what a for rebels?
The core, the core core values freedom and self expression.
They want to choose, they want to be true to themselves,
they want to be authentic, and so when a rebel

(16:59):
is making a choice, it always to say, this is
what you want, this is the kind of person you are.
And so I would say to myself if I were
a rebel, I'm an athlete. I'm a strong, vigorous person
who respects her body. To keep me trapped behind my screen,
underneath the fluorescent lights, but they can't because I'm free.
I'm an athlete. I exercise, and so that's who I am.

(17:20):
Or it's something like they say that I have to
work all these days, but I'm gonna just skip work
and go to a gym. A lot of times rebels
like to have things be different, they like to change
things up, and so many rebels will join like a
huge gym that has lots of different offerings. And so
one day I want to do yoga because I'm feeling
a little stiff, and one day I feel like doing
cardio because I'm, you know, full of energy. One day,
I'm gonna try plates because I've never done plodies before.

(17:43):
The they can choose, um how they want to do it.
That can work for a rubble. But here's the thing
that's important for a rubble to remember is what is freedom?
Because freedom can often be characterized in different ways. And
if my sweet heart is telling me to exercise, and
my doctor is telling me the exercise, and my family

(18:04):
is telling me the exercise, maybe it feels like freedom
not to exercise because you can't tell me what. You're
not the boss of may so that whole possive people
around you, you have to tell them to pipe down.
A lot of times, are the rebel. The worst thing
you can do is anything you know, I don't just
let them because because the more you try to intervene,
even in a helpful way, the more you ignite the

(18:24):
spirit of resistance. But a rebel can also say to themselves,
what is freedom for me? Like I got an email
from a woman who was clearly like very very overweight,
and she said, I realized I had I had not
wanted to change my eating because I wanted to feel
free to eat what I wanted, But then I realized
I also want to feel free to travel, and I'll
feel more comfortable in an airplane if I lose weight.

(18:45):
What will this do? Yeah? And so for a rebel,
it's like, don't get trapped in somebody else's definition of
freedom or just resisting as freedom, which freedom for you
you want? And a lot of times the rebel can
be like, well, you're telling me not to smoke, Well
you can't, you can, you know, watch me smoke. But
it's also like, do you want to be chained to cigarettes?

(19:06):
You have the big tobacco companies to be ordering you
around and taking no. You want to be free because
and so you're going to quit smoking in order to
be free. So so rebels. It's an incredibly powerful tendency.
But once but you have to lock into the rebel
perspective because they have a very particular way of seeing
the world. All right now, I am ready for you
to speak directly to me older. Yeah, all right, so

(19:29):
what what you're an upholder too, I'm gonna holder. We
tend to have the easiest time of this, I would say,
of the four tenden sees, not that it's effortless, but
for for upholders, like putting something on the calendar, making
it to do list. These things tend to work. Like
if you said to yourself, you know what it's really
important to me, I feel like I really need to
get back into meditation at six am every morning for

(19:51):
fifteen minutes. I'm going to meditate starting Monday. Probably wouldn't
be hugely challenging for you to do the challenging part, honestly,
And it's interesting you chose the example of meditation because
I've definitely been struggling myself to see if I can
get myself to do it. I am still having a
hard time believing that it is crucial for me. I'm

(20:13):
a I'm a meditation failure. Nothing for me. So, but
I mean that's legitimate, right you can say like, this
doesn't I'm not going to do it because it's not
making me. It's not it's not making me happier, healthier,
more productive, more creative, Like it's not adding to my life. Yeah,
I don't. I don't really believe that there's any universal tool,
you know. Um, So maybe you're resisting it because part

(20:35):
of you is like it's not if you sat it worked,
if either of you thought it worked, you would do it, right,
you run ten miles without linking? And I but, yes,
right if I was utterly convinced of its utility for
me personally, of its utility for lots and lots and
lots of people over millennia. But just I just can't.

(20:58):
I can't get there. I can finished if I can't
close the deal in meditation for myself. Well, I mean
it sounds like if you've really honestly tried it and
it's not working for you, like then it's like then
you're not doing it because you just don't think it's
worth it. Yeah, you know, because like why would you
waste your time? You know what I mean? Like that's
how I felt. And in fact, it's funny because I, um,
I didn't have trouble having the habit of meditating, and

(21:22):
so when I decided that it wasn't helping, it's like
it was hard for me to break the habit of meditating.
Really like that that part I could do. But I'm
like the meditation part like did nothing for me. So
I hear it. So what is your personality type? Well,
it's funny because I spoke with question last week and
I was pretty sure. Well, Memo was pretty sure that

(21:42):
I was um an obliger, but he also thought that
he was an upholder, and we pretty came to the
conclusion that he's not an upholder. Um. He he's a
question er. And it's still um. So I thought that
at that time that I was an obliger because I
do take care of other people. But I think all

(22:02):
moms have obliger to a certain extent. You're you're never
not going to feed your crying baby, and you have
four kids, and so there's something. But when you were
talking Chrissian, and you were describing like the ways that
the inner voice of all of those people talking to
get themselves to do something, it was all rebel. That's
what I was going to say, that that is my

(22:22):
inner dialogue. You were what you were saying was my voice.
It was like my voice in your head. So I
think that's more me. I resist everything, um and sometimes
even when I do it inside my voices. You care
not the boss of me. You can't tell me what
to do, and I'll even I'll do it anyways. I

(22:43):
might as well just do it because it's not worth
fighting over. But my inner rebel is like kicking them
in my head. So it has to be a sheer
act of will to overcome that voice. So two things
I would say that is so fascinating. One is there
is some there is obliger rebellion, which is when um,
an obliger will meet meat meat meat expectations and then
suddenly they snap and they'll refuse to do something. It's all, well,

(23:06):
some people really are in kind of like permanent oblige
the rebellion, but they but they really suffer from like
a feeling of deep resentment and burnout all the time.
So if you don't experience that, and you're probably and
no burnout, it's just it's more attitudinal. No. But so,
but another point that you're making that is really important
is that like your values matter tremendously, and all the tendencies,

(23:29):
And we can take forty questionnaers or rubbles or whatever
and line them up and depending on how ambitious they are,
how considerate they are, how extroverted or introverted they are,
how curious they are, how I mean, all these things
would be different. Um. But if you ask them, like
if you asked about forty question ers to do something,
they would all say, why should I because that is
what it is. So you could be a rebel who

(23:52):
puts a very very high value on being a lovely, loving, reliable,
consistent parent, and so you're choosing to do that as
you're choosing to do that, and and so it's it's
it's a value that you want to uphold. That is
your authentic self that you're putting into the world. Um,
but still there's that part of you that's saying, this

(24:13):
is my choice. I'm doing this because I want to.
This is the mother that I choose to be. But
in the but if somebody else comes in and says
like do x y Z, like oh you can't use
your cell phone, You're like, oh, you know what, watch
me because there's still that horrible thing of like you
can't tell me what to do, which is what rebble is.
So you so that maybe what you are. But you
said you can be more than one, right, because I

(24:33):
have a you can tip to one or the other
of one of the overlapping tiend because sometimes I'm really
rebellious and other times I'm really obliger. So we had
this conversation about the red light. It's not that I
haven't run red lights and It's not that I don't speed,
it's the did um I have. The higher value is

(24:55):
human life, and I feel like the only way society
functions try affect functions is if people obey traffic laws.
And if everyone drove like my husband and drove through
the red lights, we would have chaos on the street.
You are not talking about driving through red lights in
broad daylight with lots of traffic. You're talking yes, stop signed,

(25:15):
Do you stop at it? Or do you correct? Or
do you just go? So there that was the example
you used to determine it. So I do uphold rules,
but because they make sense to me, because it's a
higher value. It's not like I'm just going around breaking
rules because I don't feel like obeying that. Okay, let
me let me give you this, this this example. I'm
just making this up. Let's see if we can get

(25:37):
at it. So let's say you got a note, one
of your children got a note sent home and it
said all children will wear button down shirts on Friday.
I would forget Friday coming up. What would your reaction
be to the new um. Was there an explanation as
to why is there a concert or something that they

(25:57):
need to go to Now, it's just like we've decided
that it's going to be school policy that children are
going to wear button down shirts. Sure, you're going to
be curious whatever, But like, would you go out and
buy the shirt? Would you be like, no way, I'm
gonna like this is ridiculous, I'm not gonna do it.
Would you be like, I'm gonna call to school and
find out what the reason is. This seems arbitrary to me? Um,
what like what would your response? I would do some

(26:18):
questioning first. I would ask my kids, like, what's going on?
Why do you don't know? You know what? I don't?
Also say you know you if you don't, if you
know why you're having the shirt. Shirt, you have to
remember to wear the shirt because I'm going to forget. Um.
But I wouldn't like deliberately not have my kid wear
the shirt. Um No, I'm not. It's not rebellion for

(26:38):
the sake of a violin. It's maybe I am an obliger,
but just with a little snarky side. Do you worry?
Do you say things like I need to take more,
I have to have more self care? Never? You don't,
not once in my entire life, you feel like you're
good at taking time for yourself. I've h I feel

(27:02):
like it's not I mean, it's I get enough of
you know, it's it's all good. It's my life is good.
I don't need not good taking time person. I mean,
my whole life is self care. My whole life is
I get to do this freaking podcast. How awesome is that?
It's not like it's not like, you know, I need
to go to a spa to unwind, because every day

(27:25):
is good. We'll take the quiz. I don't want to go.
We would have to do like a long conversation on
the podcast. Alright, alright, this is also great. After the break,
we're going to talk about something really fascinating, tomorrow logic.

(27:51):
Before the break, we tried to unwind my complex and
not that interesting person get back to us. One cares, Um,
I do you are? You know? But um, you brought
up tomorrow land tomorrow tomorrow logic. I'm thinking tomorrow because
it's not. It seemed to me when I was, when

(28:13):
I was reading better than before. Um, it seemed to
me that it's partly about figuring out your tendency. But
then there's some there's some sort of broad general guidance
that you give um the draws on your research, and
tomorrow logic was one of the things that I was
interested in. It's really about timing change, um and and
not timing it. What is tomorrow logic? Well, this is

(28:35):
from my book Better Than Before, which is all about,
as you say, the twenty one strategies have have a
change and um, understanding your tendencies is one of the strategies.
But then they're they're there twenty other strategies and like
you say, some of them are very tied to your tendency,
Like the strategy of accountability is one that's super important
for a Bliger's might not be productive at all for rebels, um.
And then some of them kind of apply to you

(28:57):
no matter what. They kind of are supparate from the
whole four tendencies thing. And like the strategy of convenience,
it's true for everyone, Like if things are more convenient,
you're more likely to do them. We all know this
and you can really harness that. So tomorrow logic is
the idea that you know everything's gonna be easier tomorrow. Yeah, today,
for sure, I don't have time to do this today,
but tomorrow it's gonna be easier, you know, or it's

(29:17):
not necessarily tomorrow. It could be like, oh, well, you know,
once the summer starts, every this is my thing that
I do every Once the summer starts, everything's gonna calm
down and have a lot more free time, so it'll
be easy for me to do these things. Well, you
know what, No, it's like today is as good a
day as any for just about anything. Um. And the
problem with tomorrow logic is that there's you know, you're

(29:38):
always a day away, you know, like tomorrow. Well, and
here's the interesting thing about starting your diet tomorrow. What
research shows is that people who have planned to start
a diet, say on January one or after the holidays,
are on their birthday whatever, they eat more, they like,
they like you know what I mean. So they it's
actually like a really bad thing to think about in

(29:59):
terms of like ho full eating, because it tends to
make you eat less helpfully. And so one of the
things is that always to think about, well what about today,
Like today is the only day that we can control, Um,
why not just why not do it today? Even if
you're only going to be able to tackle some little
bit of it. Yeah, today, because that's another that's another

(30:20):
strategy that you talk about that seems like it sort
of applies to everybody breaking things down into something small
and taking just that first step. Um that that seems
like a polder, rebel whatever, and you could probably do it. Yeah,
the strategy of first steps. One of the things I
would say about strategy of firsteps. So the strategy of
firs steps is about starting and like the power of starting.

(30:41):
Two things that are interesting about starting. One is that
a lot of times it's easier to start something for
the first time than it is to start over. If
you ever like you know, like I had a friend
who gave up drinking for a month and it was easy,
and then he started drinking and he's like, oh, give
it up again for a month, and then it was
much harder the second time. And I was like, yes,
my friend, it's always harder to start over. And so
if something is important to you and you're starting, really

(31:03):
try not to stop. You might say like I'm going
to take a break or I'm gonna have a planned exception,
but don't say like I'm stopping and I'm starting, because
that kind of creates this this this roadblock in our minds,
even the semantic sis staying saying I'm just going to
take a break, like That's one thing I've really come
to believe is the vocabulary matters tremendously, that we really

(31:25):
are always thinking in terms of symbols and metaphors, and
it really really matters how you frame things to yourself.
I absolutely and so saying something like and in fact,
I think I tell the story in the book. My
yoga instructor UM was telling me how one of the
things that happens in New York if you live in
New York, cause a lot of times people go away
for the summer, and so for many people there's summer
schedule is very different from their winter schedule, even as adults,

(31:47):
not not people who are children. Um, and he said,
like somebody he had somebody who wasn't he was teaching
yoga too. And the person said, Okay, I'm gonna stop
and then i'll call you when I get back to
start again. My instructor says, yoga words say that. No, no, Now,
I know that you're gonna be out of town. So
I'm taking you off this week and this week and
this weekend, this week and this week and this week

(32:08):
and this week and this week. But I'm going to
see you on September five. If you can't make it,
let me know. But you have not stopped. You can't
make those dates, but you're still taking yoga. Maybe she
was nicely trying to fire him. I've done that. It's like, oh,
I'm leaving town and I'll give you a call. Don't
call me, I'll call you. I mean that that could

(32:30):
be a polite way to do it, but but that
you're right, but that could be. But then do that
mindfully and be like, this is the way to nicely
break up. Um. But he was trying to say, don't quit.
And another thing about small steps is sometimes like if
you read a lot of stuff about have to change
and change in general, one thing that people ought to
say is like, don't don't tackle something big, start small.

(32:50):
You want little accomplishments, tiny steps. And this is how
people hostily change for some people, but many people who
are like, they're not interested incremental change. They want to
go big or go home. They want to do radical change.
And the thing is, there's no right way to do it.
If you feel like, listen, I've never exercised in my
life I am committed to running the New York City Marathon.
I'm gonna train for it. Don't tell somebody like, no,

(33:13):
you're doing it wrong. That's the wrong way. Maybe that's
the right way for them. And so sometimes are like,
I'm one of these crazy low carb people. And I
read a book called Why We Get Bat by Gary Tobbs,
and literally overnight I changed everything the way I ate
except for leapy green vegetables and chicken. Everything else change.
And many people said, well, that's just not possible. You know,

(33:34):
you need to make incremental change, but ex substitutions make
gradual changes. It's too And I'm like, it's not what
I experienced. To beat I lost the fair amount of weight. Um,
I didn't do it to lose weight. I did it
because of insulin. My sister is a Type one diabetic
and this book absolutely makes the case that you want
to keep your insulin as low as you can't. But
I mean, it's that's a whole separate argument, which I

(33:55):
would love to talk low card sell it. But my
point is a lot of people are like, what's that
possible to do that? And I'm like, I'm not saying
that it's the right way for you, because for many
people's small incremental change is the more appealing, more successful strategy.
But if it feels wrong to you, don't let anybody
tell you that it's the wrong way to do something.
If it's right for you, it's right for you, and um,

(34:19):
and you know, there's just many, many way ways to
achieve aims. And if you're like I keep trying to
use it to do list and it just never works,
it's like, fine, there's no magic tool. If the do
list doesn't work for you, if meditation doesn't work for you,
then fine, just what are you really trying to get at.
Let's find another way for you to try. Sometimes you
have to experiment, you have to try a couple of

(34:39):
different ways. Here's another great example exercising, like doing something
first thing in the morning. How many times have you said, like,
if something is important to you, do it first thing
in the morning. And there's a million reasons us why
that makes sense, except that there's one big reason that
it doesn't make sense, which is that a lot of
people are night people, and they are the most productive
and creative and energetic later in the day, and the
idea that they're going to do something difficult, like work

(35:00):
on their novel or their PhD thesis or go exercise
first thing in the morning. Is setting them up for
failure because that's their low point of the day. I'm
a learning person, so that's great advice for me, as
for other people. You know, I think you're getting at
something that is so um interesting about your books. There
are a lot of strategies. You do this in your

(35:21):
blog all the time, to a lot of great strategies,
um a lot of things to try. But the overall
message to me that I value so much is just
try stuff, Just experiment. Your life is very plastic. You
can try it for a short period of time, you
can try it for a long period of time. And

(35:41):
I guess that's it actually led to a question for me.
Some people are more willing to experiment on themselves in
their lives than others. How can you? But that's just
is that an overall healthy posture in the world to
be like, hey, let's just try it, let's experiment. Well,
I think it's I think it's I think it is good,

(36:02):
and I think because I think a lot of times
there are things people can do um and this is
one of the things I always try to emphasize. And
certainly this is my've been my own approach in my
own life, which is, there's stuff you can do as
part of your ordinary day without a lot of extra time, energy,
your money. You do not need to quit your job,
you do not need to totally reschedule your reschedule your life.
You do not need to go in at ten day

(36:22):
silent silent meditation retreat. There's things for just about all
of this, certainly for me and I think for most people,
there's low hanging fruit. There's stuff that you could just
try without a lot of investment, you know, just just
check it out, just see. And the thing is, if
it is if it does make you happier, healthier, more productive,
more creative, then you're probably gonna want to stick with it.
And if it doesn't, then be like, okay, well that's

(36:44):
something I learned. I learned that that doesn't. So you
have to be kind of fearless about failure, like little
little tries that sometimes lead the little fails are no
big deal and coming full circle kind of understanding yourself
one way by using these types, but understand in yourself
so that you can actually become better. As you discussed
in your previous book will actually make you happier when

(37:08):
the book before that. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean and
but I think it really comes down to this idea
that you're pointing to, which is self knowledge um. And
I think when we want change, when we crave change,
or when we're resisting change um or you know, or
a change has happened to us that we're just grappling with,
like we didn't want this change, but now this change
has happened, and we have to try to make the

(37:29):
best of it. I think the more that we know ourselves,
the more we can figure out how to harness the
strength of our of our interests, our values are temperament
and and and apply them to the situation. So, you know,
it's like if you know something even very simple, like
I need to have a lot of sleep, if you're
going through a big change, you might say yourself, you

(37:50):
know what, it's just really important. This has to be
priority number one because I'm going through this time and
I know that. I just it's going to be much
much harder on me if I don't get my sleep.
And so like a lot of things in my life
have to be organized. I'm sorry, I can't go out
to that dinner party because I really need to be
in bed by and I can't, you know, I mean
sometimes you if you know yourself, you can sort of

(38:11):
you can work with yourself and what's true about yourself, um,
to get through these challenging times in a way that
feels exciting and uh and not overwhelming or overpowering or draining. Yeah. Yeah,
it's interesting because you are sort of always categorized in
self help, but because your approach is so flexible, because

(38:33):
you give people so many different options, you're not really
typical self help. And in fact, in your book, like
I noticed on your blog, you you kind of called
bullshit on on motivation. Yea, Like I don't really, I
don't think this motivation thing is kind of dumb. I
don't think anybody really has motivation, um, and motivation doesn't
really make us do things. Um. Yeah, I mean that

(38:55):
a little bit. And anything else you want to call
bs on in the self help world, I'm only well,
the thing that the fundamental thing which we were deciding
about that I don't like is that the idea that
there's one dust way, which is like I'm going to
tell you this is the way to do it that
it's you know that it's doing it first thing in
the morning, or it's doing it for thirty days, or
it's starting small, or it's you know that there's one
best way, there's one right way, there's one way to succeed.

(39:17):
I'm like, there's many many ways to succeed. And when
you talk to people, you hear that, like the very
thing that works really well for somebody else would be
a disaster for someone So that the idea. So my
biggest thing is the idea that there's one best way
or one right way. Um, this amount motivation is to me,
the word motivation like it combines a lot of very
different ideas in a way that's super confusing. So to me,

(39:40):
motivation combines both the idea that I really really strongly
want an outcome, I really crave it, I'm really yearning
for it, and it also sort of suggests that I'm
willing to do what it might take to achieve that outcome.
So I'm really motivated to lose weight. Okay, but but
if i'm if you're telling me that, I'm like, okay,

(40:02):
but are you doing anything that would make me think
that you're changing anything or doing anything toward that? So
what does it mean to be motivated? That's confusing. So
I think you can say like, I really want this outcome,
but I'm not doing anything to toward it, or it's
like I'm working towards this outcome which maybe you don't
even particularly care about for whatever reason you've decided you
should do something. But the word motivation it sort of

(40:24):
lets people flip back and forth between desire and like,
are they actually doing something in pursuit of it? And
the thing the reason why I think this matters is
I think sometimes people feel like, and this is something
that is particularly true of obligers, that if they really
that the way to motivate themselves is to inflame their desires.
I wanted to I really sit here and think about

(40:46):
how much I want to lose weight and how much
I you know, and like, yet really often into what
can be very destructive, um kind of angerer or frustration
directed at the self. Why am I not? Why can't
I do this? Why might they? Enough? Motivation? Right? Right?
And But the thing is people like upholders and questioners,

(41:07):
they will say, you just need to it. Once you
understand what you want, you'll be able to do it.
Once you find the motivation, you'll be able to do it.
What we mean by that is, once you have inner expectations,
you'll be able to fall through. Good advice for questioners
and upholders, not good advice for someone like obligers and
so so part of it is, I just think motivation,
it just it combines a lot of things in a

(41:29):
way that is really confusing. Um But if you talk
about like, well, what do you want to achieve and
then like what are you willing to do toward that goal,
then it becomes a much simpler conversation, and it also
become it sort of becomes less emotional because it's just like, yeah,
I really want to do that. I really want to
get into the habit of exercise, but you know, I'm
really not willing to do I'm really I really am

(41:50):
not doing anything that would lead me towards that goal.
It's like, okay, well that's fine, Like let's just talk
about that. Yeah, I'm so I'm so glad to be
relieved of this feeling like, well, I just I just
have to gin up the motivation to do it. You know,
it's the feeling of wanting to almost inflame yourself Yeah,

(42:10):
to meditate yourself. I'm giving around that here and now. Yeah,
that alone is a huge gift. Gretchen, thank you so
much and for sharing all of this with us. Thank
you so much for joining us today. There is there
are so many ways to have fun and sort of

(42:31):
swim around in your universe. Um. You can find Gretchen
on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter at Gretchen Reuben, um on
her podcast Happier with Gretchen Reuben. And there's also a
new online for tendencies course, so um look for registration
to open up for that course because that sounds fascinating,
very cool, and thank you, thank you so much. Reach

(42:56):
out to us at you Turns podcast and tell us
your raise, what are you facing right now