I have been really puzzling this out. In the last video that I shared about the Four Tendencies and communicating with each type, my interest was really sparked because the author, Gretchen Rubin, also talks about motivation in relation to the Four Tendencies. To repeat from last time, the Four Tendencies are Upholder, Obliger, Rebel (I prefer the term Freedom Lover), and Questioner. Since each of them is motivated differently, what happens when you want people from all four tendencies to be motivated? You’re going to have to use different techniques to motivate different people. They think differently and they’re motivated differently. 

But, once you learn how each tendency is motivated, you can motivate people, including yourself! There’s power in being able to motivate, especially if you can motivate yourself! Let me share a story. My husband and I are opposites on the tendencies. You would think that that would make it harder for us to get along, but in some ways I really think we balance each other out. It seems to work out nicely. 

Mike is an Upholder-Questioner. As an Upholder, he wants structure and order, and as a Questioner, he wants answers. He wants to understand what’s going on and to have all his questions answered. 

Meanwhile, I’m on the opposite side of the scale, leaning towards Obliger and Rebel, which I actually like to call freedom lover (just sounds a little more positive to me). And that’s really how I’m motivated…by freedom. I’m totally a Rebel. I don’t want to do something just because. I want to do it if there’s freedom for me in doing it. If I see that I can have that, then I’m all in. l do it. So, I’m motivated by freedom. The Obliger side of me is motivated by people. If other people are doing it, I’m more likely to do it also. 

So, you would think that it would be hard to zero in on the same goal when we are each motivated so differently. But that’s not necessarily the case. When you have the same goal, you just need to be motivated differently, but you can still achieve the same goal. 

I’ve learned this in hindsight, which, seriously, it’s so much easier to learn in hindsight, isn’t it? I’ve been looking back on our marriage, at how we’re differently motivated and thinking “Wow, how did we get along? How did we survive all that we have when we are so very different?”

This experience I’m going to share is a perfect example of how to motivate two different people towards the same goal. So, our goal early on in our marriage was to stay out of debt. The way that Mike’s motivated is very different from the way that I’m motivated, but we made it work. He’s motivated to stay out of debt because it just makes sense. He has asked a lot of questions, and done a lot of research, and study things out because he’s a Questioner. And he concluded that being in debt really didn’t make sense to him. And as an Upholder he recognized that we have a standard of living, and he wanted to uphold that by staying out of debt.  

As an Obliger, I wanted to oblige him, so I went for it. And, as Rebel, with my freedom-loving tendency, I didn’t want to be in bondage to anyone else, or owe anyone anything. So, you can see that even with the same goal, and the two of us being differently motivated, we both could reach that same goal together and be on the same page by understanding how we’re motivated and using that to push us forward. 

Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that super, super interesting? Seriously guys, my mind was blown. Looking back on how we’ve managed our marriage and our relationship I can see the bumps in the road, where he was trying to motivate me with lots of information, and as a non-Questioner, that information really wasn’t important to me. Or, I would try to get him to just embrace the freedom of things and that was not motivating to him. Very interesting, right?

I encourage you to look back. Try to place yourself, and those around you, into those four tendencies. See if you can figure out how to motivate yourself after you recognize what your tendency is. What motivates you? What’s your tendency? Are you motivated by information, by structure, by people, or by freedom? Which one motivates you? See if you can apply this information in your life and get yourself motivated to do something that you’ve been wanting to do.