The Four Tendencies

by Gretchen Rubin

  One Rebel combined the strategy of identity with the Rebel love of challenge: “To get things done, I trick my mind with a dare. I tell myself, ‘I’m a Rebel who can stick to a routine and follow through.’ This challenge excites me. It’s rebellious to be a Rebel who can do disciplined things that you don’t expect.”

  Similarly, Rebels can tie an activity to their deep values, by viewing it as an expression of who they are. “I got myself to commit to an exercise habit by signing up to run a marathon to raise money for a charity I really care about,” a Rebel explained to me. “By tying running to my deep-seated urge to ‘do something’ for this particular cause, I was able to stick to it.”

  On the flip side, a Rebel recommended using the Rebel distaste for being trapped in a single identity—even the Rebel identity. He wrote, “I recognize my Rebel resistance and then (this is the important part) I reBEL against my REBel nature and choose the response that will help me meet my goal.”

  A Rebel identity can also be shaped by a negative—Rebels may choose to master habits because of who they don’t want to be. “I’m not the kind of coach who keeps the kids waiting because I’m late to practice.” A Rebel wrote, “My identity is ‘responsible,’ probably because my mother, the one I most rebelled against, always called me irresponsible.”

  Rebels use ingenious ways to avoid igniting their spirit of resistance—often by introducing an element of game, challenge, or choice. A Rebel said, “I interject challenge into the more strategic, long-term (but to me, boring) projects: ‘I’ll tame all of our company’s paperwork around on-boarding freelancers by next Monday.’ ” Another Rebel turned the prospect of doing routine, scheduled tasks into a game:

  Instead of writing a to-do list, I write each task on a separate piece of paper. I fold up all the pieces and put them in a bowl, then select one folded paper and do whatever task is written on it. I don’t select another paper until that task is completed. This makes for a fun game of chance, and looking at the little folded papers feels less daunting than looking at a list of tasks.

  Another Rebel was able to use a to-do list by making a simple change in vocabulary: “ ‘To-do’ lists almost never get done by me, because as soon as I have to do something, it’s the last thing I want to do. A ‘could-do’ list, however, reminds me that I can choose whether or not I complete the task.”

  In some cases, Rebels can reframe the situation so that instead of thinking, “This person expects me to do this task”—which triggers opposition—they think, “This person is doing what I want him to do, so I can get the result I want” or “This job is teaching me the skills I want.” A Rebel friend explained to me, “My mortgage broker asked me to send her some information and I resisted until I thought, ‘She works for me, she’s refinancing my mortgage, so I have more money to spend, not to pour into the pockets of some big bank.’ And then I was able to send the information.”

  The Rebel dislike of constraint can be a positive force, enabling Rebels to resist cigarette smoking, junk food, alcohol, technology, or anything else that starts to feel addictive or confining or controlling. One Rebel wrote:

  When I was trying to follow a diet, I’d sometimes think, “I can’t do what I want,” and that would make me rebel against it. Now I think the reverse: “I can do whatever I want, and what I want is to eat this new way.”

  I view unhealthy food as something corporations try to push on us. They load it with fat and salt and sugar to try to get us to eat their unnutritional, chemical-ridden crap. They try to hook us, to make us crave it, to make us slaves to it. Well, you can take your expensive, worthless junk and shove it! That’s what I think of all cookies, crackers, chips, white flour, refined sugar, and even hippie-dippie products trying to pose as healthy alternatives. Rebel enough for you?

  I don’t feel deprived because as a Rebel, I break my own rules randomly and have treats when I want them. It’s just that most of the time I rebel against the unhealthy food industry.

  Rebels dislike being tied to a schedule, so they do better when they do what they want, when they want—without any expectations that might trigger resistance. For instance, instead of putting exercise reminders in a smartphone—which could trigger resistance—a Rebel might keep schedules for all the exercise classes in the neighborhood and, when the mood strikes, choose whatever class that sounds appealing.

  Rebels can do whatever they want to do, and they’ll often remind themselves of why they want to avoid negative consequences. A Rebel told me, “I file my taxes on time because hassling with the IRS is more trouble than it’s worth, which I learned from experience. I use my turn signals, not because I’m obeying traffic laws, but because I don’t want to get hit by some idiot.”

  Some Rebels use negative consequences as a way to force themselves to act. I heard of one ambitious Rebel writer who kept herself prolific by giving away money as fast as she earned it. She knew that if she didn’t have to write to make money, she wouldn’t be able to make herself write.

  When Rebels understand the Rebel Tendency, they can harness the power of their Tendency to help them do everything they want to do.

  Why Rebels May Be Drawn to Lives of High Regulation

  The Rebel Tendency contains surprising paradoxes. For instance, some Rebels gravitate to institutions with many expectations and rules, such as the military, the police, large corporations, and religious communities.

  For some Rebels, this reflects a deep need for purpose. One Rebel explained: “I think a Rebel desires to be in the military or the clergy because it offers a sense of purpose in the midst of the daily junk. A Rebel in an office (like me) feels trapped in a cage.” Another Rebel agreed: “You find Rebels among ministers and the military because they’ve found something big enough to deserve all their energy and devotion.”

  Also, many Rebels get their energy and direction from pushing back, and highly regulated environments supply Rebels with rules to ignore, limitations to exceed, conventions to violate. One Rebel wrote:

  As a former member of the Marine Corps, I agree that there’s a high incidence of Rebels in the military. My observation, as a Rebel myself, is that it’s true because often Rebels can create quite a mess for themselves because they refuse to adhere to rules of society and may be given the choice of jail or the military (two people close to me were in this scenario). Second, the military provides a plethora of rules to follow, which allows for numerous options for breaking these rules. This was how I survived the rigidity of the Marines. Many rules are not life-threatening, so I broke a lot of them. Even still, I had a great career and earned many awards.

  Working in positions that have a lot of structure may suit some Rebels who find that too much freedom causes them to founder. As one Rebel put it, “I war against the Establishment, but I want it to be there so that I have something to war against.”

  In studying the Rebel attraction to high regulation, I was struck by the example of Thomas Merton. Merton was a Trappist monk whose writings were very influential in the 1950s and 1960s; in 2015, he was named by Pope Francis as an American who provides inspiration to the world today. Over and over, in his extensive writing, Merton expresses the Rebel perspective: the impulse of opposition, the craving for freedom, the determination to do things his own way.

  For Rebels, freedom is the paramount value, and for Merton, freedom comes from the total surrender to God’s will; a surrender that promises an escape from relentless rebellion and from the ego, with its demands, noise, and pain.

  In 1941, Merton became a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, but he became a Trappist in his own way. Although Trappists follow a strict schedule of communal work, Merton persuaded the abbot to let him establish a “hermitage,” and once Merton moved to that hermitage, he was free from almost all monastic obligations and communal labor—and not only that, his “hermitage” became the place where he met with scores of visitors, free from any supervision.

  Merton’s most spectacular rebellio
n came in 1966, when, after an operation, he fell in love with a student nurse, M. Merton didn’t hesitate to break the rules. He and M. had many “illegal” visits, letters, and phone calls, and Merton dragged his friends into the deception by asking them to help him arrange meetings. It seemed clear to Merton that God approved of whatever Merton wanted to do.

  The Rebel Tendency is one of power and paradox.

  SUMMARY: REBEL

  LIKELY STRENGTHS:

  Independent-minded

  Able to think outside the box

  Unswayed by conventional wisdom

  Willing to go his or her own way, to buck social conventions

  In touch with his or her authentic desires

  Spontaneous

  POSSIBLE WEAKNESSES:

  Likely to resist when asked or told to do something

  Uncooperative

  Inconsiderate

  Has trouble accomplishing tasks that need to be done consistently, the same way, every time

  Acts as though ordinary rules don’t apply

  Restless; may find it difficult to settle down in a job, relationship, city

  Struggles with routines and planning

  May be indifferent to reputation

  10

  Dealing with a Rebel

  “You’re not the boss of me”

  Work • Spouse • Child • Health Client • Choosing a Career

  Dealing with a Rebel at Work

  Rebels can bring great strengths to work: their willingness to break with convention, their ability to think outside the box, their connection to their authentic interests and desires.

  A Rebel sent me this image, with a great Rebel motto:

  Rebels thrive at work—when work aligns with their aims.

  Rebels can be very productive, but usually only if they’re allowed to do their work in their own way. The less bossing and supervision they get, the better—though it’s true, paradoxically, that some Rebels do need structure to ignore and push against.

  Many Rebels respond well to a challenge or to a dare, and they thrive in an environment where they do their work their way. One Rebel explained:

  In my first job out of college, I worked at a big consulting firm. I had a fantastic boss. He gave me a tough project and said, “Look, here’s a big problem. I don’t know how to solve it, you run with it. Come back to me in three months with an answer. Call me if anything gets in your way.” I did my best work under those conditions. I loved it. But then he left, and I got a new boss who wanted to micro-manage me. I ended up quitting and starting my own company.

  Note that this boss’s hands-off approach, while very effective for a Rebel, might not work for an Obliger.

  While Rebels love a challenge, they often struggle with mundane, repetitive tasks—which may or may not be a big deal, depending on the workplace. A Rebel described herself: “To overcome my utter failure at routine tasks, I work my tail off on things that I do like—big, interesting challenges. I’m pretty successful, but I think I should be more successful given how hard I work. A lot of my work is making up for shortcomings in routine areas.” Perhaps she and her boss could reassign some of those routine tasks, which don’t get done anyway, so the Rebel can focus on big challenges.

  Although Rebels generally don’t take orders or directions well, some Rebels work well with others when they themselves are in charge. As one Rebel explained, “I want everyone to do things my way, from my employees to my children. It’s chaotic being a Rebel, and not wanting to conform to anything, so I choose employees who can cooperate with me.”

  A Rebel friend who’s a respected professor told me, “Academia attracts Rebels.”

  “But what about getting tenure?” I asked.

  “You have to publish to get tenure, but you choose what to do—one book, two books, lots of articles. Once you have tenure, you don’t have to do anything except teach your classes, and you have a lot of freedom about how to do that. The dean doesn’t say, ‘You’d better produce, it’s been ten years since your last book’—even if that’s what he’s thinking. I write because I want to write, not because someone is making me.”

  As bosses, Rebels can be exciting, creative leaders who possess the determination and drive to pursue their vision. And they can also be very hard to work for.

  A Questioner wrote:

  When I realized my former boss was a Rebel, I finally understood behavior that I, as a Questioner, couldn’t understand. She’d receive a request from her boss and find fault in what she was asked to do, even if it was something she’d been planning to do. We’d set up an office process, and she’d discard it a week later.

  As a Questioner, it was very uncomfortable to work for a Rebel. I didn’t understand why she made the choices she made, or why she couldn’t stick to a decision. There never seemed to be any logical reasoning behind her decisions or assignments.

  At work with Rebels, it’s helpful to provide information, frankly present possible consequences, and allow them to choose how to act. Information-consequences-choice: “The weekly staff meeting is where we make many important decisions and where we divide up the work. If you skip the meeting, you won’t have a voice in the direction of this company, and you might get stuck on less desirable assignments.”

  A Rebel who wants to be seen as a strong leader, a powerful visionary, or a supportive boss will choose to act in harmony with that identity. “When you attend the monthly meetings, the staff feels like you’re interested in hearing their ideas and frustrations. When you don’t go, you seem unapproachable, like you don’t care about their views.”

  Rebels often want to start their own businesses or work freelance because they want to do their own work, in their own way, on their own schedule, with no one telling them what to do. But then they often struggle because they don’t want to tell themselves what to do. They can’t stand deadlines; they resist doing detailed or repetitive work; they don’t want to be locked into a schedule.

  For this reason, Rebel entrepreneurs often pair up with someone—usually an Obliger—who ensures that essential tasks get done. I talked to a Rebel who had launched a successful Internet site: “I supply the vision, I’m the voice of the brand, I generate the ideas for where we should go next. Some days I go into the office, some days I don’t. My cofounder deals with advertisers, manages the staff, and oversees the financial side.”

  Just as they often pair with Obligers, Rebels often pair with family members as work partners—perhaps because a relative has more understanding, experience, and tolerance for the Rebel.

  Dealing with a Rebel Spouse—and the Pattern of the Rebel/Obliger Couple

  Because of the challenges of dealing with a Rebel sweetheart, more than one person has asked me, “Are Rebels less likely to be in a long-term relationship?” The representative sample reveals that Rebels are just as likely as any of the Tendencies to live with a spouse or long-term partner.

  Recognizing that someone is a Rebel makes the pattern of his or her behavior much clearer. A college friend told me, “Knowing that my husband is a Rebel makes me feel better about our relationship. Now I don’t take it personally when I say, ‘Let’s do this,’ and he says, ‘I’ll never do that.’ It’s not a reflection of how he feels about me or the health of our marriage. It’s just the way he is, with everyone.”

  For Rebels, as for all of us, consequences can sometimes be dire enough to goad them into action. One Upholder described how her Rebel husband, when faced with a divorce, changed his behavior—out of love:

  The truth is, at first I did do all the work. The marriage fell apart within a year. But my husband dragged me to marriage counseling, and we have learned to respect each other’s differences.

  As an Upholder, I have a lot of motivations. But my Rebel husband is motivated by only one thing: LOVE. He does things out of love, and love only. He has figured out the things that matter to me, and he works hard to support me in them because he loves me. Our particular combination of personalit
ies has given us a unique lifestyle. I own a successful business and my husband is the primary caretaker for our children.

  The key point for the spouse of a Rebel? The more that’s asked, the more the Rebel will resist. As one spouse of a Rebel told me, “It has taken me twenty years to realize that the less I ask for, the more I get.”

  A striking pattern among Rebels is that if a Rebel is in a successful long-term relationship, at home or at work, that Rebel is usually paired with an Obliger.

  Few Upholders or Questioners welcome a Rebel’s behavior. The Upholder thinks the Rebel is impulsive and irresponsible, and the Rebel thinks the Upholder is rigid; the Questioner thinks the Rebel is driven by impulse, and the Rebel thinks the Questioner spends too much time analyzing.

  Obligers, much more than Upholders or Questioners, take satisfaction from Rebel actions and can benefit from the Rebel perspective.

  Unlike Upholders and Questioners, who are unsettled by the Rebel’s expectation-rejecting behavior, Obligers may benefit from and enjoy (at least sometimes) the Rebel’s refusal to truckle to outward expectations. For an Obliger, who feels tremendous pressure to meet outer expectations, it’s a relief to be with someone who happily disregards them. An Obliger married to a Rebel recalled, “My husband got an all-expenses-paid trip to a writers’ event in an exotic place. We went, and they wanted us to attend panels, go to cocktail parties, etc. I said, ‘Gosh, they invited us, and they’re paying for it all, we have to do these things.’ He said, ‘No way, we don’t have to do any of it.’ And we didn’t do anything we didn’t want to do.”