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. 

Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated with people who aren’t understanding what you’re saying? Or they’re not doing things the way you think they should be done? It can be hard. It can sometimes be quite a challenge in your day to day life. Well, I picked up a book my husband has been reading yesterday, and I skimmed through it. I ended up reading a lot of it yesterday actually, so I thought I’d do a little review. 

The book is called “The Four Tendencies,” by Gretchen Rubin. And I loved it! It explained so clearly these four different tendencies into which most people can be grouped. There are sub-tendencies also, but we each have a dominant tendency that influences how we think, how we view the world, how we’re motivated. The book explains each of these and teaches how to deal with them, and how to work with them, and how to communicate effectively with each tendency.

I found this book so helpful, so, to chunk it down a little bit for you, I will introduce the four tendencies. First is the Rebel. This is the type of person who, if you tell them to do something, they won’t do it just because you told them to do it. Yeah…we all know some of those, don’t we? 

Second is the Upholder. They just love rules. They love an outline. They love organization. They are like “Oh, if these are the rules, then I’ll do that.” These people can be easy to work with if you have rules, and if you realize that this is how they think, right?

Third is the Obliger. These are people who are people pleasers. They’re like “Okay, what do you want me to do? What do people think is the best way?” They kind of look around and try to figure out what’s going on and can kind of mesh with things, and flow, and really get in rhythm with what’s going on. That is great…if you have something going on. It could be hard, though, if you don’t have a system, or they don’t have anybody to look to for guidance. 

(As you can see, all of the tendencies have their pros and cons.) 

Fourth is the Questioner. These people have lots of questions. They want to know everything about everything, and once they can understand what’s going on, they’re totally on board. They can move forward, and they’re motivated to move forward, when they know why they’re moving forward, why this particular project, and why now. We all know some of those, too. 

So this book really talks about how they can flow together and how to effectively communicate with all of them. I highly recommend it. My biggest takeaway from the book is that all four tendencies need three things for us to be able to effectively communicate with them.

They first need information. Give them all the information that you have. Everything that you can think of that applies to the project, or the thing that you’re working on or what’s happening in life, or happening in the day, or what you expect. Information! They need information. Second, they need to understand what the consequences are if the task isn’t done, or if things don’t happen the way that they’ve been informed need to happen. So, consequences. Once they understand the consequences, they need to be given a choice. Once they have the information they’re like “Okay, you’ve given me all the information. Now what happens if I don’t do it? What happens if I do do it?” And then after that, give them a choice. Let them decide. What are they going to do? Are they going to choose to use this information? Which way? Are they going to act on it? Are they not going to act on it?  

If they provide these three things when you communicate your desires to others, then you can feel satisfied that you have communicated effectively, and that the other person (or people) understood what was going on, what the consequences were, and that they had choice.

I’m so excited to be able to start applying these principles. I think it’s going to be amazing. Because I know people are so different and they think differently than me. And the people that I work with everyday, especially my kids, they’re so different from me. Some of them are similar, and that makes it easier, but some of them are different and that makes it also easier because they can do things that I can’t do.

So, I encourage you to act on this. I have given you the information. The consequence of applying some of this could be amazing. The consequence of not…is fine too. But, now that you have the information, I’m guessing you’re going to be thinking “Oh, maybe I could apply that. That would be cool.” So, try it out. Let me know if it worked for you. I think you’ll have a good experience.