In my quest for understanding, both of my own behavior and that of people I interact with daily, I have a tendency to over-examine, to attribute intentions to others’ behaviors, to invent stories of why they behave the way they do and why I respond to them the way I do.
It’s a weird obsession I have, trying to reason away human behavior. The weirdest part about it is that where others are involved, I rarely ask them directly why they behave the way they do (see prior post.)
As a result, I read a lot of what might be considered the “self-help” genre of books. My latest was a recommendation of a close colleague: The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. Knowing your own tendency, or response to internal and external expectations, helps explain A LOT. Understanding other people’s tendencies and how yours interacts with theirs explains A LOT MORE. (Want to know what your primary tendency is? Take the quiz! Then comment here and tell me. I want to know!)
I am apparently what is known as an Upholder. I do what is expected of me (most of the time) and I do what I expect of me (most of the time.) I am a self-motivated and dependable, get-shit-done kind of person. I do not understand why in the world people have so much difficulty doing what needs to be done. Interestingly, this tendency is among the rarest. Most people fall in the Obliger tendency – and yes, it is just what it sounds like – these are the perpetual people-pleasers who oblige until they hit the wall, and then they stop. Abruptly. I looked askance at the Upholder label for myself because I very acutely identify with what Ms. Rubin called the Obliger-rebellion phenomenon. I can name many instances where I met others’ expectations (or what I believed to be their expectations) until I just one day, out of nowhere, stopped. Hit the wall, had enough, fed up, burned out, stopped. Never to return again. But the quiz insists that I lean most heavily to Upholder, even though I suspect I tilt Obliger.
I want to make everyone in my family take the quiz – indeed, everyone I know! I want to confirm my suspicions about them. For instance, my one child whom I have the hardest time figuring out how to help or how to motivate, may just be a Questioner with a Rebel rising. He’s always asking for evidence, and often for justification. As a Questioner, he needs information, he needs reasons, which he then decides whether those reasons make sense to him, and then MAYBE he will do something. The Rebel in him is the one that refuses to get formal music lessons, and teaches himself; the one that won’t follow a rubric because that isn’t how creativity works. Any assertion someone makes requires justification and explanation.
Makes perfect sense to me.
I am really curious about the rest of the people I interact with each day. Could the reason I get so frustrated with other people is because I just want them to get on with it? Could the reason one of my colleagues cannot stop herself from making changes to projects is because she gets caught in an analysis paralysis loop? Could it be that the other colleague avoids using processes and systems because he’s a Rebel and he just won’t do it? (I actually find this particular tendency to be really frustrating.) Pretty sure that one of my Obliger colleagues is getting dangerously close to Obliger-rebellion.
If this is all gibberish to you, take the quiz! If nothing else, it will help you understand why you respond the way you do. It is absolutely fascinating. Rubin says that your primary tendency is fairly static – the only way a primary tendency changes is if a person experiences a traumatic or life-altering event – and I wonder, having lived through a few of those, was my tendency altered? Was I once a Questioner who morphed into an Upholder? I have a very strong sense of self and self-preservation – and an equally strong adherence to my own commitments to myself, but I am a rule follower. I feel better when I understand what is expected and am very uncomfortable with ambiguity. I want things to be clear. I need to see the full picture before I can zoom in on the details. For instance, if clear expectations are not communicated to me, and I cannot get agreement, I make them up! If I don’t, I can’t get anything done. It’s that simple. Has to be logical, methodical, and a means to an end. A+B=C. If there is no agreed upon process for getting work done, I create one. I cannot function comfortably without processes. I need structure, routine. But it also needs to make sense to me – if it makes no sense, then why do it? If there is no good reason to do something, I will not do it. The phrase “because we’ve always done it that way” is enough to send me over the edge. This actually aligns with the Questioner tendency.
I am resigned to my current “sorting” in the Upholder category. I do tend to uphold expectations. And it is the rarest, after all.
Who am I to disagree?