>> Amy Draves: Thank you so much for coming. My name is Amy Draves and I'm thrilled to
welcome Gretchen Rubin to the Microsoft Research Visiting Speaker Series. She's here to
discuss her latest book Better Than Before in which she brings a provocative yet practical
perspective to habits. Gretchen is one of the most influential writers and bloggers on the topics
of habits, happiness and human nature. She started her career in law and was clerking for
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor when she realized that she really wanted to be a writer instead.
So she has since authored several books including the New York Times bestsellers Happier at
Home and The Happiness Project. Please join me in giving her a very warm welcome.
[applause].
>> Gretchen Rubin: Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be here today. I love Seattle, so
I'm very excited to be here. I'm going to talk for a few minutes about habits and why I was
drawn to the subject of habits. Then I'm going to throw out something that surprised me about
habits when I was doing my research so you can use it if you want to shape your own habits, or
it's much more fun, try to shape somebody else's habit. And then at the end we'll have time for
questions and answers which is always my favorite part so please be thinking of your questions.
I got the idea to study habits because for years I had been researching and writing and talking
to people about the subject of happiness I began to notice a pattern, which was when I talked
to people about a big happiness challenge they were facing it was very often something that at
its core was a problem with a habit. Somebody would say to me I'm exhausted all the time.
Well that's really about the habit of getting enough sleep. Or somebody would say I want to
write a novel in my free time, and that's about the habit of making consistent progress. I
became more and more drawn to the role that habits could play in helping us be happier,
healthier and more productive. Then I went to lunch with a friend and she said something that
got me obsessed with habits. I have to say I'm a little bit of a habits bore. I'm constantly
quizzing people about their habits, and she said to me I would love to have the habit of
exercise. I know that would make me happier. And here's the thing. When I was in high school
I was on the track team. I never missed track practice, but I can't go running now. Why? And I
thought well why? It's the same person, same behavior. One-time it was effortless. Now she
can't do it. What is going on? And I became determined to solve the puzzle of habits. As I got
into it, I became more and more curious about subjects that no one ever seemed to talk about.
Like it's maybe easy to understand why we have trouble forming the habit of something we
don't like to do, but why is it that people just as often complain not being able to form the habit
of something they love to do? Why is it that we are so unmoved by the consequences of our
bad habits? Research suggests that up to 50 percent of American adults do not take
prescription medication for a chronic health condition. Why is it that habits sometimes form
overnight? Sometimes they vanish just as abruptly. So I became determined to figure all this
out. But there were three questions that I felt I had to tackle before I really got into it and I'm
sure you have thought about these questions yourself, if you have thought about your own
habits. One is why even bother thinking about habits? We've all got a lot to do. Why worry
about your habits? But it turns out that habits are like the invisible architecture of everyday
life. Studies suggest that about 40 percent of everyday existence is shaped by our habits. If we
have habits that work for us, we are much more likely to be happier, healthier and more
productive. If we change our habits we change our lives. So what is a habit anyway? And a lot
of times the habit, when you read about habits there's a focus on repetition, frequency, the
familiarity of cues around a habit, but I have really come to believe that the key aspect about a
habit is decision-making, or really the lack of decision-making. Habits are freeing and energizing
because they get us out of the draining, difficult business of making decisions and using our
self-control. I do not decide to get up at 6 AM. I do not decide to skip dessert. I made those
decisions long ago. This is my habit. That behavior is on automatic pilot. It takes nothing for
me. When I tell people I am writing about habits a lot of times they say that's important
because I want to go through my day making healthy choices. And I am like no you don't.
Because every time you make a healthy choice you have the opportunity to make the wrong
choice. Choose once and then stopped choosing. Make it a habit and then you don't have to
make decisions. You don't have to use your self-control. Then the question is how do you
change a habit? There is no shortage of expert advice. Do it first thing in the morning. Start
small. Give yourself a cheat day. Do it for 30 days. All of these work for some people,
sometimes. But they don't work for everybody all the time. And what I found is that there are
21 different strategies that we can use to make or break our habits. Sometimes people get kind
of terrified when I tell them there are 21. It's too many. Give me three. But it's actually good
to have 21 because it means there's a whole menu from which to choose. Some of these work
for some people and not others. Some of these are available to us that some times in our lives,
but not in other times. So there's a lot to choose from. But the most important thing, the
crucial step that I think so many people skip to their detriment is that we have to begin by
thinking about ourselves. What is true about you? If you want to change your habit how are
you going to do it in a way that is right for you? Because just because it work for somebody
else to do it a certain way doesn't mean it's going to work for you. And I think a lot of times
when people fail, when they accuse themselves of being a lazy or lacking self-control, it's
because they have tried to form a habit that was never right for them in the first place. For
instance, morning people and night people, this is a real thing. I'm a morning person and I used
to think that everybody could be a morning person if they would just go to sleep on time. No.
It's genetically determined to a large degree and it's also a function of age. There is a real
difference between morning people and night people. And I have a friend who is a hard-core
right person. He's barely can get to work on time in the morning. He's at his most energetic
and creative and productive much later in the day. And he looked me in the eye and he said
this year my New Year's resolution is to get up early every day and go for a run. And I said have
you met yourself, because this is not going to work for you. It might work for me because I'm a
morning person, but for you, that is not the right way to set it up. There's a better habit
strategy for you that is going to take into account what is true for you. How many people here
are morning people? How many people here are night people? Right? It's a real thing. So set
it up in the way that is right for you. Now I'm going to talk about some strategies to think
about. As you are thinking about yourself and your thinking about how you can set up your
habits for success. Again, these are things that surprised me. Strategy monitoring. You all
know about the strategy of monitoring. If you monitor your behavior you're much more likely
to do a better job. We don't have to talk about that. Get your Fitbit. Use your app to budget,
keep track of your spending. It's powerful. It's effective but it's familiar. But here's something
that's surprising and that is the strategy of abstaining. This is a strategy that works extremely
well for some people and does not work at all for other people. You must figure out if you are
an abstain or a moderator. Abstainers are people like me and I realized I was an abstain or
when I was reading something from the 18th-century essayist Samuel Johnson, one of my
favorite writers. Samuel Johnson goes to a party and someone asks him if he would take a little
wine. And Johnson says I can't take a little. Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would
be difficult, meaning I can have none but I can't have a little. And when I read that I thought
that is me. I can have no cookies or I can have seven cookies. I can't have one cookie. I have
never had a have to dish of ice cream in my life. And the thing about abstainers, and this has to
do with a strong temptation, when you're facing a strong temptation, abstainers are all or
nothing people. We find it pretty easy to have none, but once we start we are going to go all
the way. But we find it pretty easy not to have any. Now moderators, by contrast, get kind of
panicky and rebellious if they're told they can never have something. They do better when they
have a little bit or when they have it sometimes. And when I understood the difference
between moderators and abstainers a mystery that had plagued me my entire life became
clear, which is what is up with those people who keep the bar of fine chocolate in their desk
drawer at work and once a day they have one square of fine chocolate? Because if it were me,
my entire day would be consumed with now, later, two, three, it's my birthday. It's raining.
You know? [laughter]. The whole day would be about that candy bar until it was gone because
I'm and abstainer, but for a moderator, that's what they like to do. So who here thinks they are
and abstainer? And who here thinks they are a moderator? So here you see the seeds of many
a marital fight and an office conflict. Because one person walks in with a giant box of donuts.
The other person says I did you bring in donuts? You know I'm going to eat the whole box
today. And the other person says you just need to learn how to manage yourself better, and
hijinks ensue. It's not that when a person is right and one person is wrong. It's just a they're
different ways of fighting strong temptation. This isn't just about food. It often comes up with
technology. My sister said Candy Crush was actually affecting her career. I know a guy who
said that it took him an extra year to write his PhD thesis because of World of Warcraft.
Sometimes you can't have a little bit. It's easier to have none, so it's just good to know yourself
and which strategy works for you and accept the fact that just because something works for
you doesn't mean that it is the right strategy for someone else. And this is sort of related, but
much more fun. It's the strategy of treats. This is definitely the most fun strategy of all of the
strategies. Treats energize us. When we give ourselves treats we feel energized. We feel cared
for. We feel taken care of. We are like cell phones that need to get a charge. And a treat is not
the same as a reward. A reward is something that you have to earn or justify. A treat is
something that you get just because you want it. Treats are important because when we give
ourselves treats our self command rises. If there's one thing that we all want, it's a lot of self
command, especially when we are trying to keep our good habits. And research shows us that
when they would give people a little treat either in the form of a little gift or having them watch
a funny video, people self command rose. You want to have a lot of ideas for how to give
yourself a healthy treat so that if you are in that mode and you're thinking I need it. I want it.
I've got to have it, you reach for something healthy. Some people can't really think easily of
what their treats should be. You want to be thinking about what you could do. I know a guy
who doesn't even like camping, but he loves the stuff. So he will go to a camping store and just
look around. That for him is a treat. I have a friend who has to get her whole family out the
door in the morning and so she gets dressed. She gets everybody out the door and then she
gets back into bed fully dressed and she says it's the best part of my day. It can be playing with
your dog. I have a podcast now with my sister, I'm Happier Now with Gretchen Rubin. A lot of
people say they use podcasts to give themselves a little treat. By buying yourself new music,
whatever it might be so that jolt of energy you have it. But you want to give yourself healthy
treats because unhealthy treats are very attractive. If you don't want to do something to make
yourself feel better but in the end just makes you feel worse. What are the three big areas of
healthy treats and unhealthy treats? I think you know. Food and drink, shopping and screen
time. For some people these can be healthy treats. For many people they are better to avoid
them because they can quickly become unhealthy treats. So treats matter because when we
give more to ourselves we can ask more from ourselves. This next thing that surprised me and I
have to say it was so surprising to me and so opposite of what I expected to see that for a long
time I sort of was denying my observation of the world because I couldn't make sense of it. And
what was really weird was that I kept hearing the same exact story from different people. The
same exact story like as if they were all getting the same message beamed into their brains
from the CIA because it was practically verbatim. And most memorably and the thing where I
decided that I had to figure out what was going on was I was at my college reunion. I am a
habits bore and I will ask everybody about their habits. And so I was talking to my friend Brad
about his habits and Brad told me this story which was like the 10th time I had heard this
identical story. Brad said I wanted to get into the habit of exercise. I wanted to get back into
the habit of running. So I decided to train for the marathon. And I ran the marathon. And I
loved training for the marathon. I had a great time running the marathon. And then I took off
those rest days that they tell you to take after you run the marathon, and I haven't run since.
And I had heard this from many people, specifically, about the marathon. And I thought, well,
and then there are other examples of this. I gave up sugar for lent. And I thought this is great.
I finally quit sugar. Now I eat more sugar than ever. My friends and I did a 30 day yoga
challenge and I thought this is amazing. I am doing so much yoga. Now I don't do any yoga.
This didn't make sense to me because what I would have said, what I would have predicted
would have been that these kinds of accomplishments, hitting a goal like this is going to
energize somebody. It's going to make them feel positive. It's going to make them feel more
attached to the habit. It's going to make that habit solidify, but that's not what I was seeing. It
seemed like it was having the opposite effect. It wasn't helping. It was actually seeming to cut
off the habit. I was like what is up with that? And then I finally realize what it was. It's that
these people were hitting a goal. They had crossed a finish line, the marathon, the 30 day yoga
challenge, lent. And what happens when you cross a finish line? You're finished. It's over. And
then if you want to do that again you have to start over and starting over is often much harder
than starting. And that the finish line was kicking people into a feeling that it was over. They
had been aiming for it and now they were off the hook. And the thing about setting a goal is
setting a goal is a good way to reach a goal. But with habits it's often not about hitting a goal.
It's about doing something in definitely. Don't think about that because that can scare people
when they think about in definitely, so let that just be a misty haze. But it's not about running
the marathon. It's about exercising forever. It's not about quitting sugar for lent. It's about
eating more healthily forever. And so it's much better in habits not to be thinking of finish
lines, but to be thinking of milestones. It's an exciting milestone to run the marathon. But that
is just one of many milestones that you will pass in your lifetime of exercise. And I think this is
one of the reasons why successful dieters often end up failing because typically what happens
when we go on a diet? I weigh 160 pounds. My goal is to weigh 140 pounds. I lost my goal
weight of 20 pounds. Now I can go back to eating normally. And what happens when you eat
normally? You go right back to 160 and maybe even blow by it. It's not about hitting that goal.
It's about just passing the milestone. This one I will talk about very briefly because this is weird.
I have been thinking about it for years because it came up in happiness and I still kind of can't
figure it out, but it's true. It's true for me and it seems to be true for a lot of people, which is
the weird degree to which for most people outer order contributes to inner calm. Inner calm,
inner self command, a sense of energy, a sense of optimism, it is clearly trivial if you've got an
overflowing coat closet or your in basket is stuffed with paper. And yet over and over people
tell me that when they get control of the stuff of life they feel more in control of their lives
generally. If it's an illusion, it's a helpful illusion. I had a friend who said to me last night I
cleaned out my fridge and now I know I can switch careers. [laughter]. And I knew exactly
what that felt like. It is just weird. And of all the habits that people say that they have changed
that have made them specifically feel happier, healthier and more productive, and I'm not
saying that this is the biggest changes you could make in your life, the most significant change.
But it does seem to be the thing that people like most often specifically mention, is the habit of
making your bed. There is something about this little habit that makes people happier. How
many people here regularly make their bed? How many here regularly make their bed in a
hotel room on the morning that they check out? Yes? We will talk later. [laughter]. There is
something about this little habit, so think about making your bed. And here's another thing.
Maintaining order is really hard. There is constantly that scum on the surface of life that we
have to fight. Here's a good habit for your consideration, the one minute rule. Anything that
you can do in less than a minute do without delay. If you can hang up your coat, if you can print
a document and file it, if you can scan something and throw it away, if you can put your coffee
mug in the sink, this keeps all that stuff from just accumulating. It's trivial on its own, but it can
make us feel weighed down and when you get rid of that stuff it's just weird how often people
say that they just feel freer and it makes them more full of possibility. And the last thing that
I'm going to talk about I have to say of everything in my entire life that I have ever, any
intellectual challenge I have ever faced, this was the biggest intellectual challenge that I
struggled with. I could feel the smoke pouring out of my ears at certain points when I was
trying to understand this. This is this personality framework which I saw through the lens of
habits, but then I realized it's actually much bigger than habits, which I call the four tendencies.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to explain the four tendencies and then I'm going to go
through and I'm going to ask you to raise your hand because I will be very curious to see who is
here, where you are in the four tendencies. And then I'll go back and make some observations
about the four tendencies so you can think about how you might use your knowledge of your
tenancy to manage yourself better or how to get along better with other people. Before I start
I want to make a few notes. First of all, it sounds really boring when I start, but I promise it gets
juicy, so stay with me. The other thing is that sometimes I get the feeling that people are trying
to figure out what the best tendency and kind of show themselves into that category. But like
anything having to do with self-knowledge it's only helpful if you are honest with yourself. All
categories include people who are very successful and also big losers, so be honest. Here we
go, the four tendencies. They say there are two kinds of people, the kind of people who like to
divide people into two kinds of people and the kinds of people who don't. I definitely am the
kind who does, so you're going to hear it right now. This has to do with whether you are an
upholder, a questioner, and obliger or a rebel. What's different is how do you respond to an
expectation. There are outer expectations, like a work deadline or request from a sweetheart.
And there are inner expectations like your own desire to keep a New Year's resolution, your
own desire to get back into practicing guitar. So upholders readily meet outer and inner
expectations alike. They meet work deadlines. They keep New Year's resolutions without
much fuss. They really want to meet others' expectations from them but their expectations
from themselves are just as important, or more important. Next, questioners, questioners
question all expectations. They will do it if they agree that it makes sense. They hate anything
arbitrary or inefficient. They are very interested in explanations. In a sense they make
everything into an inner expectation because they'll do it only if they endorse it. Next, obligers,
obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations, and this
explains the mystery of my friend on the track team. When she had a team and a coach waiting
for her she had no trouble showing up. But when it was just herself, her own expectation that
she was going running it was much harder for her. Finally, rebels, rebels resist all expectations,
outer and inner alike. If you ask or tell them to do something they are very likely to resist. They
want to do their own work in their own weight and their own time and they don't even like to
tell themselves what to do, like take a class at 10 AM on Saturday, no. So those are the four
categories, so now I am going to ask you to raise your hand. First, upholders, readily meet
outer and inner expectations alike. My hand is up because I am an upholder. Okay. Next,
questioners, questioners question expectations. They will do something if they think it makes
sense. Next, obligers, obligers readily meet outer expectations but struggle to meet inner.
Finally, rebels, rebels resist all, outer and inner alike. Okay. Interesting. And who here feels
like -- by the way, if you are thinking to yourself I question the validity of this framework, that's
a good sign that you are a questioner. [laughter]. And who here felt like they were not, they
could not find themselves in this framework at all? Okay. Pretty good. So what we saw here is
very, very typical. Overall, rebel is a very tiny tendency. Very few people are rebels. It's a
conspicuous tendency, but it's tiny. What came to a shock to me was to realize that my
tendency, upholder tendency, is also tiny. Very few people are upholders. And this came as a
huge shock to me as I was writing my book and I basically had to rewrite the book when I
realized -- I went into it thinking that I was very typical, and it turns out I am on the freaky
fringe, which by the way came as a shock to no one except me, that I have an extreme
personality. But I did not realize that. It turns out very few people are upholders. So rebels
and upholders are the two extreme personalities. They are small. Overwhelmingly, people are
questioners and obligers, overwhelmingly. This room, it's interesting. I can never really, I think
obliger is really the biggest tendency. In this room we had more questioners. But we have a lot
of obligers too, so those are the big ones. And that has a lot of implications for anyone
designing products or devices or doctors or anyone trying to get people to do things. You've
got to remember that a lot of people that you are going to try to convince need either, they
need to be reached through their questioner tendency or their obliger tendency. So what are
some things to observe generally about the tendencies and things that you may be can be
thinking about as you're thinking about people at work, people at home, friends. Like
whenever you are trying to get along with other people, what can you take into account? First
of all, the tendencies I believe are hardwired. They are pervasive aspect of your personality.
You're not one thing at one-time of your life and something else at another time of your life,
though it can often be difficult to tell what a child is. By the time we're adults I think that is
what you are. It doesn't change on context. They are not tied to gender. They are not tied to
birth order or religious upbringing. This is part of the hardwired aspect of your personality.
People often say can you change your tendency. The fact is with wisdom and experience you
can learn how to harness the strength of your tendency and offset the negative parts of your
tendency, but I don't think you really can change your tendency. Every once in a while, I don't
know about you, but very few times have I met somebody who truly has been changed. They
are not the person that they once were. Either they had like a catastrophic health challenge or
they went through a period of addiction or something fundamentally changed them. Other
than that, I think your tendency is what it is. Rather than worry about changing your tendency,
which is what some people want to do, it's better to think about how to agree about the
circumstances that are going to allow you to thrive. Let me make a few observations about the
different tendencies. They all have their own striking patterns. Upholders are self-starters.
They get things done, so they are easy to have around, except that they can be very hard on
other people because they don't have a lot of empathy as to why other people might have
trouble following through with things. They can be kind of cold and kind of judgmental because
they kind of have their own thing going. They got to take care of themselves. They put a high
value on things like self command and execution. And it's like yeah, I know you want me to
help you proofread that report, but I've got my own report. Or yeah, you want me to help you
with your homework but I've got to go for my daily run. One of my law school roommates is
even more of an upholder then I am. She told me that in the last year she had not gone to the
gym like five times, which to me is like pretty cool. The other people they think that is sick.
That is crazy. So that's very upholder. You're thinking to your things and you are going to
follow-through. Questioners, there are a lot of questioners in the room, so I'm going to talk at a
greater length about questioners. One of the things about questioners is questioners can be
terrific to have around because they are very healthy for organizations because they see the
ones that are saying why are we doing it by Friday? Why are we using this software? Why are
we hiring this firm? Why are we doing this at all? Why am I listening to you? And that's really
good. They're keeping people from wasting their time. They're super interested in efficiency.
They love data; Excel spreadsheets are often associated with questioners. And so that can be
really healthy to have around. However, questioners can also drain other people and
organizations because of the constant questioning. If a team has decided that a question has
been asked and answered and the questioner won't let it go, then everybody else can get
exasperated by that. Also, sometimes their questioning can seem to be undermining or
uncooperative or not showing a team spirit. For instance, a questioner is in a classroom
questioning a teacher, or a boss who is being questioned, they might feel like their authority is
being undermined, or they might feel like that person is not showing respect. Where the
questioner is I just want to understand why we are doing this. But sometimes it can come
across in a bad way. And this is a place where more socially adept questioners are good at
framing things like, I don't see why we're going this way. So help me understand it so I can do a
better job executing, instead of being like, that doesn't make any sense. Why are you doing it
that way? Questioners are often really annoyed by the stupidity of the world. Here's a weird
thing about questioners, they often have trouble with traffic regulations. This comes up over
and over again when I talk to questioners. They are like it's totally arbitrary that we are all
supposed to drive the same speed limit. Like what is up with that? I'm not going to abide by
that law. Well, good luck with that. So that arbitrariness of things like that really bothers them.
Some questioners are very decisive, but some will complain of analysis paralysis. They love
information and so they want to have more and more information. They can get caught up in
that because it is so fulfilling to them. And sometimes they don't like to make decisions unless
they have perfect information, which sometimes you don't have the luxury of waiting or even
having perfect information available to you. And so if you are a questioner like that and you
feel like you are draining yourself or other people, or you are managing someone like that, it
can be very helpful to say something like we need a decision by Friday. By Friday I have to have
your best judgment. Or we are going to interview five people but not 15 people, to put a limit
on it so that there isn't this endless spent. A good friend of mine is a questioner and she is
married to a questioner and she said we needed to get a new dishwasher and it took two years
because every time there was like well what is the best dishwasher? If we are going to get the
dishwasher, do we need to get a new countertop? Well if we are going to do the kitchen,
should redo the roof? And she's like, and finally she's like we are going to get a new dishwasher
by Friday. Like that's best offer. We've just got to act because they were spinning into analysis
paralysis. Then obligers. Obligers, they readily meet outer and they struggle to meet inner.
Obligers are the rock of the world because they are the ones that will come through, but they
struggle to do things for themselves. I will say of all the tendencies, obligers are the ones that
are the most likely to say that they do not like an aspect of their tendency because they get
very frustrated by the fact that they see themselves meeting the expectations of others but
they are unable to meet the expectations of themselves. I think often they misunderstand the
dynamic. Often and obligers might think that what's going on is that I have low self-esteem or I
can't make myself a priority or others are constantly interfering with my ability to do the things
that I want to do. But here's the thing. If you are an obliger or you are working with an obliger
or living with an obliger, which you most certainly are because it is a very large tendency, the
answer, the secret, the way to get an obliger to meet an inner expectation is to put an external
expectation on it. It's all about accountability. When there is accountability, external
accountability, the obligers can do whatever it is. This is the answer. For my friend on the track
team, if I knew then what I know now I would say run with a friend. Run with your dog. Sign up
with a trainer. Take a class where they take attendance. Some obligers feel accountable if they
pay for things. Some don't. That's an important thing to know about yourself. Does that
matter? She is very cheap, so I bet she would really care if she paid and she would show up if
she paid. Find a way to have the external accountability. And I have loved hearing from
obligers about the creative ways that they have figured out ways to give themselves external
accountability for their inner expectations. Two of my favorite examples, one is a woman who
lived by herself and she wanted to get up earlier. So how would you create external
accountability for getting up earlier if you live by yourself? What she did is she went on to the
social media management platform Tout Suite, and she set up a very embarrassing Facebook
post to post every morning at 8:15 AM unless she gets up to disable it. I talked to two guys and
when they work out they swap shoes. So if you don't come tomorrow then I can work out
because you got my shoes. So there are all of these ways to build in external accountability
once an obliger realizes that that is what the necessary piece is. Here's another very striking
pattern about obligers. Obligers will meet, meet expectations and then suddenly they will snap
and they will refuse, obliger rebellion, where they will refuse to do something. This can be
small and symbolic. It can also be explosive and destructive. And this is very important to try
to not allow obligers to get into that place of deep burnout and resentment because it can be
very destructive. For instance, in the workplace this often comes up. Obligers are very valuable
team members, often, because they are meeting external expectations and if somebody else
asks them to help out they will. But then they feel exploited and taken advantage of. And by
the way, they are because who does an upholder or questioner or rebel go to for help? Go to
the obliger. And so then they get overloaded and then they are like I am out of here. Over and
over I've heard from obligers who are like you know what? I didn't say a word. I decided I had
enough. I walked out the door and like they wanted to have the conversation about what is a
need? What do we need to offer you to get you to stay? And I won't. I have had enough. We
always want to be looking for ways to keep obligers from getting into that deep burnout or
being taken advantage of and exploited by others, like ourselves, so they don't fall into obliger
rebellion. And then finally, rebels and then we will go to questions, my favorite part. Rebels
resist all expectations outer and inner alike. They want to act from freedom and choice. They
want to express their authentic self at all times. If you are working with a rebel, you want to be
very careful that you don't accidentally trip their feelings of resistance. This is very easy to do,
because you could do something like hey, read this book. You'll love it. And they are like no.
I'm not going to read it. I hate it. Because you're telling me what to do. This is so great. You're
following the doctor's orders. He can't tell me what to do. In fact, I had a friend. She has a
rebel father. So they go to the doctor and the doctor is like, Mister so and so, you absolutely
have to take your medication. You better follow my orders because if you don't do this you are
going to fall into a high-risk and blah blah. So they go out on the street on the sidewalk. He
turns to her and says what do you think? Should I take the medicine? And she is like, why
would you bother? And he says what? You want me to die? And he takes it, always making
the choice. And so if you're working with a rebel, like say a rebel child or a rebel team member,
it's things like wow. It would really make everybody's life easier if we could get this project
done before spring break. That's just information. And the rebel can act on it or not. They can
choose. To say to a rebel child, to have your choice of colleges, a person has to have good SAT
scores. That's just information. Act on it with what you will. Because they will often rise to a
challenge. They want to do things often that are going to make them successful or loving or
considerate, but it needs to come from a place of choice, not duty, not obligation, not what's
polite, not what you said you did, not what everybody expects you to do, not because I said so,
but because they're choosing. But they can do anything that they choose to do and that is very
powerful. So the last thing I would say and then we'll have questions is just I really do think
that it's worth taking the time to think about your habits because they are so pervasive. They
are so powerful. They are so freeing. And when we change our habits we can change our lives.
So thank you. [applause]. Now you get a gold star if you ask the first question because nobody
likes to be first. Oh! And I believe you were a rebel. Were you a rebel? So rebels always want
to sit in the front or the back. I don't know what's up with that. Are you a rebel too? See?
Front and back, how crazy is that? Okay.
>>: So you went over the four types. Can these types be situational? Like, for example, can I
be a rebel with my wife but an obliger with my manager? Or something like that?
>> Gretchen Rubin: The question is, is it dependent on context, like your one on one context
and one on the other? I really don't think so. Because often when people think that they are a
mix, really they are not. So if you say something like I am and upholder at work, but I'm a rebel
with myself, that's the definition of an obliger, right? I'm meeting external expectations like at
work, but when I'm trying to get myself to do something I don't do it. So that's actually sort of
the definition of an obliger. I spoke at a high school and I talked to a guy who said I am a mix
because when I am talking to a teacher that I like and I respect and that teacher gives me
homework, I'll do it. But if I don't like the teacher I won't do it, like a rebel. And I said no, that's
questioner because a questioner's first question is why am I listening to you? If you don't have
my trust, if I don't have respect for your authority, I'm not going to do it. And so that's a
questioner. So I think often we look like a mix depending on the situation, but it's actually the
same tendency just showing its face in a different way because it's a different circumstance.
Yeah?
>>: Is there a way to practically measure or quantify happiness? Can you say this is how happy
I was yesterday and this is how happy I am today?
>> Gretchen Rubin: The question is can you quantify happiness. There is a huge amount of
research and if you go to, is that the Masters in applied positive psychologer? Anyway it's the
MAP program at the University of Pennsylvania. They have like 1000 quizzes and tests that you
can take. Yeah, there are. I find them completely annoying and I did it once. On a one to ten
scale, I'm was seven on happiness. Thank you. But I don't find myself that it's helpful to be
constantly trying to be quantifying, but there is a huge amount of research trying to do that.
Yeah?
>>: This is about advice for giving up sugar. I will tell you a few things that I have tried and you
can let me know what works or doesn't.
>> Gretchen Rubin: For me, yeah. Different things work for different people, yeah.
>>: One thing was I tried to quit cold turkey, like [indiscernible] without sugar. It had a lot of
benefits and you can stick with it because you draw less benefits. I didn't last past the first day.
Then I tried keeping no sugar at home. It has worked really well.
>> Gretchen Rubin: Right. That is the strategy of convenience.
>>: That works really well. And then the other thing was after a workout I can treat myself
with sugar.
>> Gretchen Rubin: Uh-uh, bad idea, bad idea, no, no, no. Reverse reward, no. Back away.
Back away. [laughter].
>>: I just had three bites.
>> Gretchen Rubin: No. Moderation, right? This is what a nutritionist will say to you. Have
three bites to satisfy that little sweet tooth. You sound like an abstainer, my friend. You got to
go off that thing altogether. Okay. I am 100 percent abstainer. You would not believe that I
abstain from. I am like a low-carb fanatic. Really. And so, but to me it is so freeing. It's hard
for me. I can't even get my mind around the three bites. But you are very smart to make it
convenient to stick to. There are 21 strategies. One of the most powerful strategies is of
convenience and the corollary which is the strategy of inconvenience. So you want to make it
very inconvenient to eat sugar and very convenient not to, so cleaning out your house is good.
And then bright line rules are often very effective, like my sister is a type one diabetic and she is
a TV writer. You cannot believe the food that they have around TV writers. It's insane. And so
her rule is that at work she is absolutely strict with yourself. And then at home she is much
more loose, but at home she is very strict. So you could try that. As I say, I think that having
the three bites, try it. If it works for you, that's great. If it doesn't work for you try abstaining.
That's much easier. One of the things about cravings is that cravings are more ignited by
possibility. They did a fascinating study back when everybody smoked of flight attendants.
What they found is that whether they were on a three-hour flight or an eight hour flight their
craving for nicotine kicked in at a certain amount of time from landing. It wasn't the time in the
body free of nicotine. It was the possibility of having a cigarette. So if you're like I don't eat
that, then that craving just diminishes. So the possibility, and then about having, I'm going to
reward myself, rewards. The strategy of rewards is one of the most complex and I think you
misunderstood strategies within the habit change, which is how do you deploy rewards to get
yourself to stick to a habit. And there is only one way, I think that it can effectively work. The
only reward for a habit that you should give yourself -- the obvious reward is the reward of the
habit itself. One reward is I'm not eating sugar and so I have all the reward that come from
eating sugar. But can I give myself an additional reward? The additional reward is anything
that logically flows from that. Let's say I was doing a lot of yoga. A reward that would be
appropriate would be I'm going to get a new yoga mat because a person who does a lot of yoga
needs a new yoga mat. Or I've decided that I'm going to bring lunch from home every day. I'm
going to reward myself by buying some fancy kitchen knives because a person who is doing a
lot of cooking needs kitchen knives. But so often we reach for perverse rewards which are
things that actually counteract any benefit that we would get. Oh, I'm going to go for a run so
I'm going to give myself a beer. Those are things that are just like this. And what often
happens with people because of the way we are is that the habit will fall away and you keep the
reward because you're like well, I'm in the habit of having a beer every day when I get home
from work. Well no one could expect me to go for a run today because I hurt my foot. It's
raining so hard but I still get my beer. You know what I mean? This is the thinking. So it's like
the treats, treats, treats, you can say one of my favorite treats is a guy, a friend of mine, he
loves Cinnabon. But it's dangerous to go there. So his reward is that when he is in the Newark
airport he gets to have Cinnabon. And the fact is that's okay because he's not going to go out of
his way to go to the Newark airport just to get a Cinnabon. If he was saying to himself every
time I run I get a Cinnabon, that thing could be fired up seven days a week. So be very careful
about rewards. And I say this as a total low-carb fanatic and so take it for what it's worth. From
my experience when you give it up altogether, cravings fade. All of that noise just goes out of
your head. It's just over. And so for me that works really well. That is not the strategy that
works most successfully for other people. Most people do not want to totally eliminate it. I
talk in the book about how you can sort of eliminate it, but manage it with things like
anticipated breaks. Like I'm looking forward to it on Saturday. Or like my friend who went to
Montana who is total low-carb like me, but when he went to Montana there was a famous pie
place. And his rule was he could have pie at every meal. He had 21 pieces of pie in a week, but
he never had it with ice cream. He never brought it back to his hotel room. He didn't bring any
home with him. He had his pie. He loved having his pie. It was an important part of the
vacation for him. And then he came back to his regular life and it was all. But he anticipated.
He figured out how he wanted to handle that habit in advance. What you want to avoid is one
you're invoking that loophole on the fly. Oh, it's my birthday. Oh it's the specialty of the house.
Oh, it's going to hurt your feelings if I don't order birthday cake. That kind of stuff.
>>: That's the cheat day strategy.
>> Gretchen Rubin: Yeah, I would not use it. No. Cheat day, no. Cheat day is like once every
seven days. To me, for an abstainer that is not healthy. You just become too -- this is like it's
your anniversary. You're in Paris. Like, okay, tonight. This is your once a year thing. Cheat day
starts to be well yeah, I have my cheat day on Saturday, but then New Year's Eve is Monday and
it's kind of the same thing. And then two, three… Get out of that man. The strategy of
safeguards. Loophole spotting, which there are 10 categories of loopholes that we are
constantly evoking. Like the fake self actualization loophole, life's too short to not eat a
brownie. Anyway, we've got 10 categories of those. You can keep that going all day long. You
want to fight those loopholes. Yeah?
>>: I got a question about the four types. I listened to your podcast where you had four types
and they all called in and left a voicemail of their mantras. I noticed that there were no rebels
that called in.
>> Gretchen Rubin: No. No. There was an amazing rebel motto.
>>: Which one was that?
>> Gretchen Rubin: It was you can't make me and neither can I. [laughter]. There were
several.
>>: I didn't pick up on that. Is there a cause for a book to be apathetic? Are there regions
where there are nonvoters, for example? How do you motivate that? That's the follow-up
question.
>>: I think he's talking about lazy rebel.
>> Gretchen Rubin: One of the very important things to point out is that this is one very tiny
slice. It's very influential in how you move through the world, but it's a very small aspect. Take
a rebel. A rebel is going to look very different if they're considerate. If you have a loving rebel,
that rebel is going to act very differently from a rebel who doesn't really care about other
people. Or how smart you are, or how ambitious you are, or how creative you are or how
anxious you are, all of these things come into play. So there can be this gigantic range in how it
comes. Some rebels are extremely cause driven and they can be super powerful because they
can break the rules. They can break convention to do with they want. And others, no. So I
think that has more to do with the other parts of your personality and how it can come out
because all of these tendencies can be very positive and helpful for you and for society. And
then there are ways for it to come out where it can be less successful and more instructive.
Absolutely. Yeah?
>>: Hi. I'm a huge fan and I have a question and a plug for a podcast. I'm an upholder and I'm
also five months pregnant. So I have all of these beautiful habits and one of the biggest things
I've heard about parenting is that you just don't know. You don't know what kind of baby you
are going to get. But I definitely want to think about how to live a habits for exercise and yoga?
So I was curious what you have heard from new parents and what advice you have. He is due in
May so you don't have time to write a book about it.
>> Gretchen Rubin: This is a very upholder question because upholders are very interested in
kind of excellent execution and also in managing themselves to be able to perform. And so the
idea that maybe you are not going to be able to go to the gym for three months, to an upholder
that is very anxiety producing because I need to be able to stick to my good habits. This is why
upholders are often seen as rigid to other people because I need to go. I would say you are
very wise to anticipate that it's going to be -- and this is the strategy of the clean slate, which is
that when we go through a major transition, whether it's a new baby, a new relationship, a new
job, moving, all of our habits are wiped away and new habits come in. And so what you want to
do, and it will probably come easily to you as an upholder is to really think about the baby
arrives. Everything is changing. How do I want to build in the habits that I want and to think
about it from the beginning, because whatever habits form in the beginning are very likely to
persist. You want to start as you would continue. One of the things about a new baby is the
sleep deprivation. Your sleep is so disturbed and so your sleeping has to be the top priority. So
if other things, in your mind you might have a set of priorities like what are the most important
habits that need to be honored, and so not everything might be able to do right away. I don't
know if you know about the three month mark, which is everything becomes dramatically
easier after three months. So you could even say to yourself I am going to have three months
which is like the super newborn stage and then some things I'll worry about once we get to that
mark because then things are going to start getting easier. But it is a big transition and it does
affect a lot of people's habits. They're wiped away and then they don't always come back in a
good way. So that's very smart to be thinking about. Yeah?
>>: Kind of a clear location, because at first I pegged myself for the question. [indiscernible]
came with me at you are rebel. I think for me I get a lot of stuff done, could be a rebel. But is
the clarification so I do find this is there is a lull, I find it really [indiscernible].
>> Gretchen Rubin: Yep. That's a rebel.
>>: Okay. So that's the difference.
>> Gretchen Rubin: Without making it sound too complex, a lot of the tendencies they overlap
with other tendencies so you sort of tip one way or the other. So you might be a rebel who sort
of tips to questioner and so it's pretty easy for you to go along with a rule if you're convinced
that it makes sense, but your first impulse is still that pushback. Like I don't want you to tell me
what to do. I don't like that it says no cell phones on the wall. Watch me pull out my cell phone
and start talking on the phone. But rebels can be super successful and super high performing if
that's what they want.
>>: [indiscernible]
>> Gretchen Rubin: That's a very rebel way of thinking. For an upholder, that's not true. I
know. And if you and I worked together it would be important for us to recognize that we have
this difference. Because I am the one like let's make a sheet of the top five things that blah blah
blah. And you would be like no. That is going to drive me crazy. You know, like that. I literally
had a rebel back away from me one-time. She was like… I said discipline is my freedom and she
was like freedom means no rules. And I said yeah woo hoo we are not talking the same
language. [laughter].
>>: You said people mentioned things that they wanted to achieve and you said I saw habits as
kind of a core thing. Have you found anything that is kind of before habits? For example, I'm
thinking of maybe beliefs, for example.
>> Gretchen Rubin: For example what?
>>: Like beliefs that make up habits for example. Maybe a rebel says I want to be a rebel for
this but maybe they believe in freedom as an absolute thing, freedom from themselves and
freedom from other people. Is there something before habits that explains?
>> Gretchen Rubin: I never thought about that. That's an interesting question. It's an
interesting question to as to how much of our beliefs flow from our nature and how much is
our nature shaped by our beliefs. In my own mind I haven't really decided what I think about
that. Are my values, am I an upholder because those are the values I have or do the values
make me an upholder? I don't think so. So I don't know. That's a very good question. That's
interesting. Yeah?
>>: [indiscernible] shown on hypnosis and habit making?
>> Gretchen Rubin: I tried that. For the happiness project I tried hypnosis. I thought well this
should be an easy shortcut. I'm just going to hypnotize myself into perfection. I didn't find that
it worked and basically the way that I had tried hypnosis it was like basically about like what do
they call that? It wasn't like a passive thing. I had sit there and constantly be mindfully
picturing what I was doing and it was like this is way too much work. This is just basically
focused attention, image, I forget the name of it. There's a name for that. So then I had this
experience and I sort of dropped it, so I haven't done any further research on that. If anything,
there are probably people that do it very well and it's very successful, but for me it did not
work. Yeah?
>>: Can you give some examples of healthy treat habits?
>> Gretchen Rubin: Healthy treats? Yeah, like buying yourself new music, learning a magic
trick, going for a walk with your dog. But for some people going for a walk with your dog they
would suddenly have to force themselves to do. So it all depends on you. Huge craze now,
adult coloring books, right? Okay. That's a good treat. Like your favorite show. Like maybe
you're going to keep your show and not watch it but keep it has like a treat. So if you need a
little treat, I'm going to watch the office rerun because I need a little treat. And so sometimes
you have to hold something back so that it feels like a treat. If you said to yourself I'm only
going to have coffee as a treat then it would start feeling more like a treat or you could just
have it be part of your everyday life. I am super obsessed with perfume and I have a perfume
that I love and this is when I need a big treat. Like I'm feeling very sorry for myself for I'm
feeling very anxious because of something and I am like, I get to wear that perfume. I save it as
a treat. So it's really independent so you want to have a lot of those in your back pocket. One
more question. Okay. Yeah?
>>: You mentioned a strategy for obligers to map their external to internal to get healthier
habits. But what about for questioners? It doesn't seem to work the other way.
>> Gretchen Rubin: For questioners, their value is reasons and justification. So when a
questioner is having trouble sticking to a habit, it's usually because really deep down they don't
see the value of it. This is really important because in many situations we might want people to
form a habit but they aren't really convinced. And so they're not going to be compliant. So if I
said to you I need to have that by Friday, but you know I don't really need it until Monday,
you're not going to give it to me until Friday. So if I wanted to get it by Friday I would have to
say to you I need this by Friday because I'm going to be flying on Saturday and I want to read it
on the plane. Okay. I can give it to you by Friday if there's a reason. Or I was at the dentist and
the dentist said you need to brush your teeth for two minutes or you are going to get tartar.
That sounds like a reason, but it's not really a reason. Why do I care if I have tartar? Right? So
she wasn't really giving me a reason. She needed to say because you are going to have tartar
and if you have tartar, I don't even know, because she didn't tell me what's going to happen
with tartar. [laughter]. But I'm an upholder, right? Often when questioners say that they are
having trouble sticking to something if you press them they will say I don't really believe it. I
had a friend say to me I spent all this money buying all these vitamins and supplements but I
never take them. And I said do you need to take them? And she said oh no. I don't think so.
So that's why you didn't take them. I don't know why you bought them, but that's why you
didn't take them. But I was like if you were a type one diabetic taking insulin, I bet you would
take it because that, you know you need it. So always you go to the justifications and the
rationale and that can mean a lot to research because they have to get to that place of
understanding this is why this is important for me. Because once they buy in, then they can do
it. So thank you all. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for having me. It was so much fun.
[applause]