I recently started listening to the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast and also the audiobook of her book, The Four Tendencies. To preface, Gretchen describes the Four Tendencies framework as:

We all face two kinds of expectations—outer expectations (meet work deadlines, answer a request from a friend) and inner expectations (keep a New Year’s resolution, start meditating). Your response to expectations determines your “Tendency”—that is, whether you’re an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel.

• Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations—“Discipline is my freedom”
• Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense; essentially, they make all expectations into inner expectations—“I’ll comply—if you convince me why”
• Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves—“You can count on me; and I’m counting on you to count on me”
• Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike—“You can’t make me, and neither can I”

Knowing your Tendency can help you set up situations in ways that make it more likely that you’ll achieve your aims. You can make better decisions, meet deadlines, meet your promises to yourself, suffer less stress, and engage more deeply with others.

Understanding the Four Tendencies Framework, Gretchen Rubin, https://gretchenrubin.com/four-tendencies/.

If this piques your interest and you want to find out what your tendency is, the quiz can be found on her website here.

To no surprise, my tendency has repeatedly resulted as Rebel. I resist inner and outer expectations, I only do things when I want to do them, and the more someone tells me to do something, the less likely I am to do it. And this is all true.

I am only inclined to do things I want to do and resist things that I should or need to do; however, this doesn’t mean I’m a completely messy, unreliable, and sloppy person. Gretchen appreciates that your tendency is just one aspect of yourself, and there are other traits and characteristics that present Rebels in a way that they can be drastically different from one another. This is one of the things that made her a respectable person to me – unlike most “personality” quizzes that hand your result over as a catch-all or summary of you, your tendency only explains one part of yourself, which is how you react to expectations.

I never really put much emphasis or belief in whatever a personality quiz tells me, but when I read through the Rebel Report after taking the quiz, things just suddenly seemed to make sense.

What Causes Rebels to Rebel

Rebels resist control, even self-control, and usually enjoy flouting rules and expectations.

…

For the most part, they don’t respond well to supervision, advice, directions, reminders, nagging, or routines, or doing repetitive tasks. They prefer spontaneity to scheduling.

The Four Tendencies Quiz, Detailed Report: Rebel, Gretchen Rubin

This resonated with me so much and I thought it was just me being stubborn, a trait of a Scorpio, but it’s not as simple as that. I dislike being told what to do or controlled because it takes away my autonomy to make choices.

Personally, I think I changed from an Upholder to a Rebel after experiencing chronic trauma in my formative adult years (I’ll dive deeper into this later), so it makes sense to me that I resist being controlled, supervised, advised, or nagged because my trauma affected how I felt about my own autonomy and body. One of the lasting effects of my trauma is learning to regain control of my body, learning to trust myself again to make decisions, and regaining my sense of self overall. It’s difficult to understand when it presents as anger at being told what to do until you really do the introspection to figure out why you’re angry. Some people call this “shadow work,” I just call it self-reflection and introspection.

Rebels tend to even resist peer pressure because they don’t like being coerced or told what to do, meaning that when it comes to social pressures at a party, for example, in which friends try to coerce a Rebel to drink alcohol, the Rebel is more likely to resist drinking, which can lead to healthier habits.

I stopped drinking alcohol shortly after my 25th birthday because it just wreaked havoc on my body and afterwards, my body just did not agree with alcohol. I always had slight side effects from drinking alcohol in college, the Asian glow, headaches, drowsiness – my body never liked alcohol, but it was definitely protesting on my 25th birthday and afterwards. I even developed an aversion to alcohol where just the thought or smell of alcohol makes me physically nauseous. It’s definitely been a point of contention in my romantic relationships. I won’t even kiss someone if I can smell the alcohol on their breath and I am a highly sensitive person, so I can sense even the slightest whiff.

Nowadays, when I tell people I don’t drink and they start with the, “Oh come on, it’s just one drink,” I become so much more adamant about not having a drink. To the extent that I believe I’m a better person than others because I don’t fall into the peer pressure to have a drink.

I used to start off with just, “Oh I don’t want a drink.” Then, “I don’t drink alcohol.” Which leads to, “Why?” And this one question tends to make me frustrated from the get-go. I don’t drink alcohol, that’s a good thing, it’s healthier, yet I’m the one alienated because it’s the opposite of what mostly everyone else does.

I’ve become annoyed trying to advocate for myself as a non-drinker because people always come up with suggestions or excuses for me to try to like alcohol.

• “Maybe you just need sweeter drinks.” No, that’s even worse. Alcohol and sugar.
• “Just one sip or drink won’t affect you.” You’re wrong.
• “Have you tried Pepcid?” Trying to fix one vice with another isn’t healthy.
• “Maybe you’re just dehydrated.” I usually am, which just gives me more reason to not drink alcohol.
• “But it’s fun!” I’ve become judgmental about people who act like they need alcohol in order to have fun.
• “It helps take the edge off.” Not for me, it makes me paranoid because I lose control over myself and have been victim to many attempts of sexual assault when I am tipsy. Something I’ve noticed as a difference between men and women who enjoy alcohol.

I’ve started to just use the “I’m allergic to alcohol,” excuse because it’s apparently a much more acceptable reason than just choosing not to? It requires less explanation and dealing with ignorance. How about just respecting other people’s decisions and what they decide to do with their bodies? It’s not that hard, honestly.

And sometimes I am a hypocrite, even to myself – hello, Rebel! On my 28th birthday, I decided to go to the Hello Kitty Cafe and experience one of their happy hours. I really wanted to do one of their afternoon teas, but it’s incredibly hard to get a reservation for it and I was only able to reserve Happy Hour. There were quite a handful of drinks that sounded really interesting, enough to make me want to try them. So I ordered some of the drinks, mostly sweet-sounding drinks or drinks with Asian-infused flavored. I took a sip of each drink, didn’t like any of them (no surprise) and let my friends have the rest of the drinks.

But the key to all of this is that it was on my own accord. No one told me to drink, no one suggested a certain drink for me. I’m fortunate to have been surrounded by people who respect my decision to not drink alcohol, which is unfortunately rare. I’ve come across more people who try to get me to have a drink after I tell them I don’t drink alcohol than not. It’s really disappointing.

And this is all another trait of being a Rebel – disliking when other people question their decisions. It’s said that Rebels tend to think long and hard about their decisions before they make them, so when someone questions their final decision, they (reasonably) get annoyed. The same goes for Questioners.

So what motivates Rebels then?

Rebels typically respond best when given information, being informed of the consequences of each action, and then being given the autonomy to make their own decision.

Rebels also respond well to challenges. Rather than saying, “You should…” Rebels respond better to, “I bet you can’t…”

– Focus on why you want to exercise – it makes you feel energetic and alive; it’s fun; you love a challenge (Strategy of Clarity)

– Consider how exercise allows you to be true to yourself – you’ve always been an athlete; you’re a person who refuses to stay cooped up inside all day (Strategy of Identity)

– Exercise in a way that sets you apart from what people usually do (Strategy of Other People)

The Four Tendencies Quiz, Detailed Report: Rebel, Gretchen Rubin

By learning more about what it means to be a Rebel, I’ve learned what motivates me to do the things that need to get done.

• Instead of telling myself, “I need to do the dishes,” I focus more on the fact that I enjoy having an empty sink and that I dislike clutter so that is my motivation to wash the dishes.
• Instead of the begrudging “I need to clean the litterboxes,” I focus more on the fact that I know Oreo loves when I clean the litterboxes and I like seeing Oreo happy. I also tend to take better care of others than myself.
• I don’t like sweating or working out, but I love being out in nature so I go on lots of walks.

Passions. A Rebel with a Cause.

So you kind of get the gist of what a Rebel is: you can’t tell them what to do and neither can they. What does fire up a Rebel, though, is a cause they’re passionate about. This also resonated with me. I don’t do many things or have many interests, but the things I enjoy advocating for are things I am deeply passionate about. Mental health, AAPI representation, women’s rights, women’s health, sexual assault awareness, animal welfare, wildlife conservation, climate change/global warming, gender inequality – these are all things I will fiercely and passionately talk about. Unfortunately, these are also very popular topics in politics and leads to many…debates.

To no surprise, many of the people I end up debating with just happen to be men who don’t understand a lick of what women have lived with systemically since the beginning of society.

• “There are so many more laws protecting women now.” Why do you think they needed to become laws just so women are protected? Who do they think they’re protecting women from?
• “Women have so many more rights now than they did before.” Yes, there has been a lot of progress, mostly because people advocate for these changes, but that doesn’t mean it’s equal yet. Did you just all forget about the overturn of Roe v. Wade? This is not progress.
• “There aren’t a lot of women in blue-collar jobs because they don’t like to do physical work.” Absolutely wrong. Haven’t you heard of female bodybuilders? Women in the military? Women can be just as capable as men and sometimes even stronger. There aren’t a lot of women in blue-collar jobs because men don’t like hiring a woman among a whole crew of men. They have to act differently and become at risk for sexual harassment claims (gee, I wonder why).
• “There’s women in blue-collar jobs. My boss is a woman.” Okay, and how many men are there in comparison?

Just as every man is different and has different interests, so do women. Just because there is not a majority of women in one sector doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy being in that sector. This article is very eye-opening and describes the shift in mindset to being more gender-inclusive.

Why the push for women 

There are multiple reasons for companies to push the pedal on improving gender diversity. As Jaya Singh Panda, chief learning & development and chief diversity officer, Tata Steel, points out, “If you don’t increase women participation in the workplace across industries then a large talent pool is out of the system, apart from the fact that economic growth gets impacted.”

Number of women in blue-collar jobs increasing across manufacturing sector, Ishita Ayan Dutt, https://www.business-standard.com/economy/news/number-of-women-in-blue-collar-jobs-increasing-across-manufacturing-sector-123102000012_1.html

Gender inequality is also one factor in our world’s climate change.

When women lead climate action and participate in environmental decision-making at all levels, communities and ecosystems are more likely to see positive change.

Research shows that a higher presence of women in decision-making bodies translates into more ambitious climate goals and policies. Women are also more likely to support policies that require greater transparency into the production of goods, transport goods using clean energy, and stop the use of fossil fuels.

Ecofeminism: Understanding the Connection Between Gender and the Climate Crisis, SHI WOO JI, https://blog.pachamama.org/ecofeminism?utm_term=&utm_campaign=Dynamic+Campaign&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_tgt=dsa-19959388920&hsa_grp=154399889707&hsa_src=g&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_mt=&hsa_ver=3&hsa_ad=666281953619&hsa_acc=3809916187&hsa_kw=&hsa_cam=20377498982&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2uiwBhCXARIsACMvIU3lZG6TEoXVQkoHPzbjYy_KNSkH9TG6ytLySWP9r6sJAUVLG1DGjj8aAsZNEALw_wcB

Changing Tendencies

Gretchen briefly mentioned in her book that it’s highly unlikely that your tendency will change throughout your life unless you experience a near-death experience or chronic trauma.

I do believe at one point that I was an Upholder before I experienced trauma. I was extremely disciplined, responsible, focused, and never had any trouble doing what I needed to do, whether it was something like showering or studying for 5 hours straight.

After living through trauma, I’ve become much more of a Rebel because I lost my sense of self, my autonomy, and more or less, my mind. Everything was thrown out of order after I was raped. I didn’t know what to do, who I was, what I wanted, what I needed, I was just hanging on.

Changing from Upholder to Rebel, I am still disciplined and responsible, especially when it comes to others’ expectations, but I am heavily influenced by my own feelings and wants when it comes to my own expectations. I am much more spontaneous rather than making plans and sticking to them as I previously did. Nowadays when I have plans, they feel like obligations and I am much less inclined to stick to them due to my Rebel tendencies.

P.S. This has been sitting in my drafts for almost a year and I never realized it. Of course, I’ve lost my train of thought and direction for this post so sorry if there’s an abrupt end. I still believe the information is insightful!