Pushkin.
My sister calls me a happiness bully, because if I think there's a way for you to be happier, I can get kind of insistent.
For over a decade, author Gretchen Rubin has been on a mission to crack the nut on happiness, and what she's found has surprised her.
I went into it thinking like, well, what I'm going to find is the best set of habits and the best practices for happiness, and like the core principles, but it's really about understanding the variety with which people approach their lives and the multitude of tools that different people use.
On today's episode, how understanding our personalities can help us unlock a better path to happiness. I'm Maya Schunker and this is a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change. Gretchen Ruben is the author of five best selling books about happiness, all a delightful blend of memoir and science based insights. She's also the creator of The Happiness Project, an initiative that spans several books,
a podcast, and a vibrant online community. I was drawn to Gretchen's story because she never thought she'd end up in this space. In fact, she'd trained as a lawyer, graduating from Yale Law School and clerking for the Supreme Court. Gretchen was on this path until one gloomy, rainy day when she was struck by existential question, the kind that can hit you when you're surrounded by a bunch of soggy people on a city bus.
I said, well, what do I want from life anyway? And I thought, well, I want to be happy. And I realized I was saying I wanted to be happy. But I didn't spend any time thinking about whether I was happy or if I thought I could be happier. I didn't even really know could you make yourself happier? And I thought, you know, I should have a happiness project. And I ran out to the library and got a giant's stack of books. This is something that happens to
me frequently. I get really enraptured with some idea like happiness, and I run out and I read a ton of books, and I take a bunch of notes. But with happiness, it was so endlessly fascinating and so interesting. I was going deeper and deeper and deeper and getting more and more excited about all the things that I could do in my own life and to try, you know, all these experiments that I wanted to run on myself as a guinea pig. It really started just as an experiment
for my own life. That is what became the Happiness Project eventually.
And for listeners who haven't read The Happiness Project, do you mind getting a little color as to the types of things that you tried out during your experimental year making Happiness?
Yes, I spent a year. It was a year long experiment to see what made me happier? Could I make myself happier? And so every month I would pick a theme for something that I thought would make me happier. So I might work on energy or marriage or work. And then for each month I would take a handful of sort of concrete, manageable resolutions, things that I felt like I could do as part of my ordinary day.
I didn't do anything that was like a two week silent meditation retreat, like these are all things I could do as part of my ordinary day, and just to see, like, well did this make me happier?
What were some of the most memorable changes you made that you feel had the greatest impact on your happiness, or that surprised you in some way.
Well, one of the biggest surprises, I mean you know this is that the research is overwhelming that novelty and challenge tend to make people happier, even things like going to a new restaurant or walking through a new neighborhood. But I thought, well, that's not true of me. I like familiarity, I like mastery. I have very limited interest in what I like to do. I eat the same food all the time. But because of the nature of
this experiment, I had to test it. I had to see what I would find, and so at that time I thought, well, I'll start a blog. And this was something that at that point was very much out of my comfort zone. I always wrote long, I never wrote short. I didn't come from journalism, so I was used to writing books. Yeah, I didn't know how to do techie stuff. I just felt like everything about it was intimidating and unfamiliar and scary, and I thought, well, it's novel and challenging,
so why don't I try this? And that just became an enormous engine of happiness for me. I mean, it's led to so many things, and I've learned so many new skills from just sort of stepping into that territory. And so I found that even for a familiarity and mastery lover like me, it is true that novels and challenge make us happier.
Yeah, I'd love to dig in a bit on the novelty challenge. Given what you've described about your personality. I know that Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in behavioral economics, differentiates between moment to moment happiness or utility and then remembered utility right or remembered happiness.
The things that might in the longer term make us feel happiness or fulfillment or satisfaction in the short term might come along with a lot of unpleasant feelings or negative feelings like you described right within those early days of blogging.
The way I think about it is to be happy, you have to think about feeling good. So how do you have fun, love, enthusiasm, connection, play? You have to think about feeling bad? How can you feel less? Guilt? Anger, resentment, boredom, indignation. But you also have to think about feeling right, which is,
does your life live up to your values? Does it reflect what you want your life to be, even if that makes you feel bad and does not make you feel good, it doesn't, And you have to think about having an atmosphere of growth, which is when we just feel we're happier when we're growing, when we're learning things, when we're fixing things, when we're helping someone else, when somehow we're just contributing to growth. And so for me, it's clearer to think about something like this is this
is a way that I was growing. And it's a trade off that we all have to be thinking about at all times, because you know, we say like all we have is now, all we have is the present moment. That's true. It's also true that a life that is wholly focused on the present moment would not be a good life. You don't want to do something right now to make yourself feel better that just in the end
is going to make you feel worse. And so I think that this tension between how do I feel right now versus do I choose to deprive myself of something? Do I choose to demand something of myself? Because I know that my future self will be happier for it exactly.
And I think some of the research that I find so exciting in the field of cognitive science and psychology happiness is around how we can reduce the friction we feel in the short term when it comes to reaching our long term goals and the fact that our ability to build habits out of the things that we want
to do can be a very effective tactic. Yes, so can you talk a bit more about the connection between habit building and happiness and again how that can help us overcome some of these shorter term obstacles or barriers in pursuit of our long term happiness goals.
Well, and what you're saying is exactly what led me to write my book Better Than Before, which is all about habit change, because what you see is that people want to be happier, but then often what it would take to follow through with those aims is to develop some kind of habit. Because you're right, habit puts behavior on autopilot. We don't have to make decisions, we don't
have to use willpower. It's just something that happens. We just get into a car and put on the seatfeld and we just don't give it a second thought, and there's a lot of power in that. And so when we're trying to build a habit, there's many things that we can do to try to strengthen it. So one of the few sort of almost universals is that we're much more likely to do things that are convenient and
much less likely to do things that are inconvenient. So if there's something you want to do, you want to make it as easy as possible, And if something's you don't want to do it, you want to make it harder. And I've heard of so many funny examples, Oh can you share some of them. They sleep in their workout clothes so they don't have to change their clothes to
go work out in the morning. I've heard of people who will take their television remote control and like put it in a cabinet on the other side of their house or apartment, so if they want to turn on the TV, they have to walk way out of their way. You know, putting your phone in the trunk of your car instead of putting it next to you where it's going to be beckoning to you with every time it chirps, You're just going to want to like ooh, can I
just take a quick look. Yeah, here, I am at a stop it I'm just going to take a quick look, like, well, it's in the trunk of your car. That won't that'll be too inconvenient. So I think those are things that just about anybody can think about as convenience and inconvenience.
And it's hard to overstate I think just how even the smallest of frictions can have a disportionate impact on our behaviors. So, like my husband and I go for walks in the evening, and it just drives some nuts when I occasionally, you know, take my phone out of my pocket. So there are times where, and this has been a wonderful change in my life as of late, I just leave my phone at home. I'm like, between the two of us, we only need one phone. So
that's like the full phase. Yes, great idea. There are times where I need to bring my phone for whatever reason, and when I do that, I put my phone onto airplane mode. And you would think I'm one button away from four, going back to four whatever, five g right, just one button away, one press away. But in my mind that is enough of an antagonist for me to not want.
To do it. Yes, this is not like you have to do some you know, you've got to rearrange your house to make it easier to do yoga or something. This is like, you know, very small things can make a difference, and small inconveniences can make it much easier to resist temptation exactly.
And on this topic of you know, small changes generally, I love your focus on in for mental changes within the constraints of our existing lives to try and become happier, because look, most of us don't have the luxury of engaging in a radical Elizabeth Gilbertian and pray love escape, Right, it's fun to read about, but yeah, it's fun to read about.
We can't manage it.
And a lot of us only have the mental bandwidth even day to day to introduce small changes in our lives given our other responsibilities. And I think I share some very similar personality traits to you, and that you know, I'm a creature of habit, I like routine. I'm not actually seeking a revolutionary, big change in my life. I don't think that's actually constant with with who I am.
And so the idea of looking within our own spaces to try to find more joy or more happiness, I think is for someone like me anyway, and for lots of folks who are listening to this who have like really busy, active lives and not that much freedom to explore other spaces, I think that can be a huge source of inspiration.
So I think that we need to think of things that are manageable that we can do as part of our ordinary day, things that are concrete, so they're not things like I'm going to eat healthier, because it's like, what does that mean exactly? Does it mean you're gonna not eat out of ending machines? Does it mean you're going to cook more? Does it mean that you're going to start eating breakfast. Does it mean that you're going to start packing a lunch to bring from home. Does
it mean that you're not going to get take out? Like? What does that mean for you? There's a million things that could mean. What exactly is the specific habit that you're wanting to do and make it manageable and really find a way to make it part of your day to day. But one of the things I think that is really interesting is that you also want to consider a lot of different ways for you to achieve your aims.
I think sometimes we want somebody to say like, this is the right way to do it, or this is the most effective way to do it. But the problem is is that people are really different, even with something like morning people and night people. If you want to exercise, say, somebody might say to you like I get up every morning and go for a run before work and that works great, you should do that, and you're just like, oh, I'm going to and then you just can't. It just
doesn't work for you. Yeah, a lot of times people get discouraged and I think, well, what's wrong with me?
Because my partner, my neighbor, or my coworker can do this no problem, instead of saying something like, well, maybe I'm a night person and I'm at my most productive and energetic later in the day, or maybe I need accountability and this other person doesn't really need accountability, and so if I want to do this, I'll do much better if I go with a friend who's going to be annoyed if I don't show up, or if I exercise with a trainer, or I think about how I
need to be a role model for someone else because I need that accountability to get myself to stick to it.
Yeah. I mean, I think one of the reasons I was so excited to talk with you today, Gretchen, is that a huge inspiration in creating a site change of plans was an appreciation that there is no one size fits all approach to managing change or happiness, right, and that, Yeah, it's so important to figure out how we will engage
with a change based on our unique set of personality traits. Yes, and so I see similarities in what I've just described in your approach, which is identifying core features of your personality. You call them tendencies, and then you can try to figure out, Okay, given that I have these tendencies, how can I then, you know, engineer solutions, specific tailored solutions within my own life.
Yes, I think there is no one size fit cell solution. It's you know, birds, bats and bees all fly, but they have different kinds of wings so they can all get up into the air, but you know, they use different tools to do it. And I think people are the same.
After the break, Gretchen shares the four personality types she's identified in her work, what she calls the four tendencies. Then she explains how understanding your tendency can help you become happier. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans. Do you mind giving listeners an overview of or framework, namely the four tendencies?
Sure? So this divides people into upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels. And I'll describe it briefly. But if somebody wants to take a quiz and like get a report and an answer, because I know some people love a quiz and an answer, you can go to Gretchen Ruben dot com slash four Tendencies Foure Tendencies and it will. It's like three and a half million people have taken this quiz. It's free, it's quick. But I'll just describe it, and I think
your listeners will know what they are. Sure, So, what it's looking at is something very narrow but significant, which is how you respond to expectations, outer expectations like a work deadline, and inner expectations like your own desire to keep a new year's resolution. So upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. They meet the work deadline, they keep the near's resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for
themselves are just as important. So their motto is discipline is my freedom. Then there are questions. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense, So they're making everything an inner expectation. They meet inner expectations, they resist outer expectations. They don't like anything that they think is arbitrary, ineffective, unjustified. They're always looking for reasons, and so their motto is all comply if you convince me. Why.
Then there are obligers, and this is the biggest tendency for both men and women. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So these are people who say, I don't understand why I can keep my promises to other people, but I don't keep my promises to myself. So their motto is you can count on me, and I'm counting on you to count on me. And then finally rebels. Rebels resist all expectations out or
an inter alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time. They can do anything they want to do, anything they choose to do. But if you ask or tell them to do something, they are very likely to resist, and typically they don't tell themselves what to do. So their motto is you can't make me, and neither cannot. So those are the four tendencies.
Okay, So let's say that someone has identified what their tendency is, right, yes, can you give just a couple of illustrations of ways that they might be able to apply that to their own life in order to see greater happiness or change or whatever their goals are.
Absolutely. So let's say that someone wants the habit of exercising, because that's a very common habit that people like because they know it makes them happier and more energized and sleep better. So let's say you're an obliger. That's the biggest tendency you need out our accountability. So you just need to figure out how to get that if you're a questioner. Questioners are good at forming habits once they
decide that's what they want. And if you see a questioner who's sort of stalled out and says they want to form a habit, but it is having trouble even though they say, well, I know this is make me happier. It's probably because they don't have clarity. They need to know why. But it's not just like why would I exercise? It's like why am I going to do this kind of exercise? Why am I listening to this expert? Why am I doing it this way? Why am I doing
it at this time of day. The more clarity they have, the more their questions are answered, the more they will have that feeling of like, oh, this makes sense. I'm in for rebels. Rebels do not tend to have good luck with things like scheduling. They tend not to like accountability, they don't like somebody looking over their shoulders. So a lot of things that work for other tendencies don't work as well for rebels. So if a rebel wanted to do this, I would say, one, think about your identity,
because identity is such an important value to rebels. I'm a person who who has a strong, healthy, active body, or I love to travel and to travel like, I got to be in good shape if I want to climb mountains, if I want to get on, you know, a bus in the middle of a foreign country, I gotta bring that strength. And so of course I'm an
exercise that's like part of who I am. Or it's like I'm going to go exercising in the middle of the day when I'm supposed to be working because I'm not staying behind a screen and you can't make me, you know. Or they might like a challenge rebels off and love a challenge. Hey, you think I can't run a marathon, watch me. That is what I have learned from rebels as an upholder, which is my tenancy. And so for upholders, I have to say, habits come more
easily to upholders. They tend to like calendars, they like to do lists, they like execution, they like planning, and so they tend to find a lot of satisfaction in that. This is also why upholders should be aware that others often do not find it as easy and satisfying to do the things that upholders do. Upholders often think, hey, look it works for me, Just give it the program, do what I do, and you'll be it'll work for you. And it's like, no, it won't, because we're all different.
We all have to figure out what works for us.
So I'm curious question. I know. I mean, I've only had the joy for company for some short number of minutes. At this point, however, a little challenge for you. I know you're an uholder, not a rebel, but I'm going to give you a challenge anyway. So, Okay, I took your quiz, and I'm curious to know if you can guess, based on the very limited data you have about me so far, which tendency I fell into.
Well, can I ask you how you feel about year's resolutions?
Yeah? I like new yer's resolutions. I feel emboldened by them, and I usually try and take advantage of them.
Do people ever tell you that you're too rigid or that you should be more spontaneous? No? Do people ever tell you that you ask too many questions? Yes? Okay, well you're leading me to think that you're a questioner who tips to upholder. That's what That's what I'm thinking now.
Yes, so I am a questioner, but I will say when filling out the quiz. One challenge I faced is that depending on like the hat that I was wearing. Yeah, I know this is a very meta and very ironic.
Okay, now you're going deep into questionner because questionners often say I can't answer the quiz because and then they go into like all the distinctions and like how this and how that, and they're one of each thing, and but I won't put you through that. No, But but it's actually interesting because it is very much a question or response. Yeah, and so that is making me think just even being like I question the validity of this framework or like you know, what about selection bias, like
you know, these kinds of like questions. This is why the questioner tendency is so valuable, because these questions are really valuable.
Yeah, And I just I was finding that depending on the hat that I put on when answering, when going through the quiz, I could be an obliger in certain contexts in my life, and I was more of a rebel in other areas of my life. Yeah, I definitely feel like there's a lot of malleability depending on the context in which I'm operating. So if listeners go in and take the quiz and they don't like what they find,
and I know you said you shouldn't assign. You know, there's no rank order on what head you are, right, you just are what you are. In terms of the research and psychology un change, it can be really helpful to have a growth mindset around things right. It can also be helpful to not put too strong a label on oneself because we know from identity priming research that we will act in ways that align with our social identities.
And so do you see that there is sufficient malleability at least like a spectrum within each category and that you can at least aspire to possess some of the other traits that you see in the other domains. If that's what people desire, I wouldn't think about it as trying to be like the other tendencies. I'm trying to get what I want. I'm trying to achieve my aim. How do I achieve my aim as an obliger? How can I use the tools that work for obligers so
I can get where I want? Because if somebody were to say what I really want to be as an upholder, what they're really saying is, I think it would be easier for me to achieve my aims if I were an upholder, or I think it would be easier to achieve my aims if I were a questionner, or I think I could have the life I want if I were a rebel. So it's more like, you get what you get and you don't get upset, and you'll work with it and then you get where you're trying to go.
Because I think people do get very distracted by wishing they were different from the way they were, So I think to clarify my question, I think it's less about wanting to be another tendency and more that you might find.
For example, let's say that you are an upholder. Yes, okay, which I am, and you're like, you know what I do feel like in my professional life, the fact that I'm so rule bound is actually hurting me, hindering me in some way, and that if I could cultivate a little bit more of a rebel spirit so that I saw the constraints of my work in a more flexible way, I saw less red tape day to day, I was more willing to speak up to my boss. That would
be a trait from the rebel category. Doesn't mean that I'm trying to be a rebel or pretend that I can be a rebel fully in that category, But more I see traits in other spaces where if I were to cultivate that I would be better off right, I would end up being happier reaching my goals.
I think that's a much better way to frame it than saying I want to be a rebel. And that's what I hear from a lot of people. A lot of people are just very categorically, I don't want to be my tendency. Tell me how to get to another tendency. The way you're saying is very helpful, which is, each of these have weaknesses and limitations that are kind of
complemented by a strength and another tendency. So how can you mindfully think about, well, how could I bring that in so exactly point as an upholder, that is, you describe exactly what I face. Sometimes I'm too eager to meet an expectation. I too much follow the rules. So I learn from questioners and I think, well, why would I do this? What's the point of this? Why am I going to meet this expectation? Or a rebel like I can choose, I'm free here, like does this work
for me? Do I feel like doing this or not? So I think you're exactly right. I think we can study and learn from the strengths of the other tendencies.
Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I think it's just great to be exploratory in this space and basically to learn whatever you can from each you know, see what can benefit you. Look, there's lots of psychological models out there, lots of ways of divving up personality, and I think it's productive to engage with many of them and to
figure out. I mean, in the same way that we might have idiosyncratic preferences around habit formation, what motivates us, or the way in which we need to structure incentives in our lives, different frameworks might resonate more or less with.
Us one hundred percent.
One thing I love, Gretchen is that you you know, I think there's a criticism and a happiness face around. The more time we spend thinking about it, the worst off we are. Happiness is this elusive thing, and it's counterproductive to indulge too much in happiness thinking. And you counter that, right, You say, no, I don't quite think that's right. So do you mind sharing a bit more about that?
You're exactly right. I think it was John Stuart Mills who said, ask yourself if you are happy, and you shall cease to be so kind of this idea that we were going to all trip our own feet but yeah, my view is that we're much more likely to hit a target if we aim at it, And in my observation with happiness, it's not most people. The issue isn't that they think about it too much, but they're like me and they hardly think about it at all. You know,
they're in the busyness of everyday life. It's sometimes hard to step back and ask ourselves a big question like am I making enough time for friends? Am I yelling at my kids too much? Are my habits kind of slowly chipping away at my health? And do I need to do something about that? I've been me need to volunteer for like five years now, Am I ever going to do anything about that? I know that I should,
and somehow the day never feels right. And so I think that by really saying what would make me happier? What could I do as part of my ordinary day? And so I think that for happiness, it is really helpful to think about it and to try to find ways within our ordinary days to make those changes, which are often not that demanding and really can give us a surprising change.
You said that, of course, there are very personality specific recommendations around happiness yes, but for listeners who are just getting their feet wet, let's just give them a little bit to warm them up.
So, if you were going to say what are the keys to happiness, one would be relationships. Ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that to be happy, you have to have strong, enduring bonds. You need to feel like you can confide, you have to feel like you belong. You have to be able to get support, and just as important for happiness, you need to be able to give support.
So that's one kind of rule of them. Another rule of them is it's always helpful to start by thinking about your own body because our physical experience always colors our emotional experience. And when we feel energy, when we feel good in our bodies, that makes it a lot easier to do all the other things that we know
would make us happier. But if we are feeling drained, if we are feeling overwhelmed, if we are feeling just exhausted, it is very hard to do something even if you know it would make you happier, because you just don't feel like you can muster up the wherewithal to do it. So that's things like give yourself a bedtime, or like exercises like a magical elixir where it both energizes us but it also calms us down. And so thinking about Okay, I'm going to think about my body, my energy, my exercise.
And another thing to think about is like maybe you want to think about having some fun like something that you truly anticipate with pleasure, something that you do not look back on with regret. So this isn't something that's fun now, but it's not funly, something that you look back on with pleasure, something that you see it in your calendar and you really feel good about set. And this isn't like I know I'll feel better if I go to a spin class, but I don't really feel
like going out. Just know I'm going to feel great after. It's like, what are you really looking forward to? Is there a book that you've been dying to read? Is there a TV show you've been dying to watch? Like take the time to do something just to give you a little bit of that lightness and playfulness. And the last thing I would say is like, one of the best ways to be happy is to make other people happy. And this is a source of happiness that never fails.
And I had a friend once who was going through a terribly difficult time. She got fired, she got rejected from a graduate program, and her boyfriend broke up with her. And I said, how did you get through it? And she said, I was practically addicted to doing good deeds.
It was the only thing that kept me going. And this is something like, even when you kind of don't know what to do, if you do even a small good deed, like oh, I told you I would send you that recommendation, or I'm going to introduce those to people. I'm going to hold the door open for somebody with a stroller, or I'm going to donate whatever I can
afford to an organization who's cause I believe in. And sometimes people think like, well, if you do something for the benefit of someone else and it makes you happier, well it's not really selfless because you're really making yourself happier. But I'm like, who cares. It always makes me happy to see people doing good in the world, And if I'm the person doing good in the world, all the better. This is a source of happiness that is good for everyone.
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed my conversation with Gretchen. You might also like my episode with psychologist Ethan Cross. It's called The Science of Our Inner Voice. We'll link to it in the show notes and join me next week for a heartfelt conversation with Bennie Rashidi. She's a mother whose world was up ended when her toddler was given a life changing diagnosis. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive produced by me
Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our producer Trisha Bobida, and our sound engineer Andrew Vestola. Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker.
See you next week.