Episode 37: You’re not undisciplined: Hacking Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies for career change with Career Clarity coach Kelley Shields

Welcome to The Career Clarity Show, where we help you find a lucrative, soulful, and joyful career path for you! 

Ever notice that you can have a goal you really, really want to do…but week after week, you make absolutely no progress? Maybe it’s actually applying for a new job, putting away the laundry (instead of letting it languish in the basket…or on the other half of the bed), or finally scooping the kitty litter. (I’m sorry, Tigger!) 

It’s so frustrating to know you want to do something, but watch yourself not make any headway — especially if you’re a high achiever who’s used to taking action.   

Here’s what’s really going on inside you: the problem isn’t that you’re not disciplined enough. It’s that you don’t understand your own motivators.

To explain further, I chatted with Career Clarity coach Kelley Shields about one of our favorite topics: inner versus outer expectations.

Our conversation is rooted in Gretchen Rubin’s body of work on what she calls The Four Tendencies. (Not just the name of her book, but of her framework as well!)

In her research on happiness drivers and behaviors, she discovered that there are four ways people respond to expectations that affect their productivity on life-improvement behaviors, like finding a job you love or actually sending those networking emails. Here’s a breakdown of the four different types: 

If you’re the kind of person who always, always does what you say you’re going to do, you’re probably an Upholder. If you make a commitment to yourself or to anybody else, you’re going to keep it – whether it’s to finally master sourdough bread or pick your cousin up from the airport at 11pm. You meet all expectations of you. It’s the law. 

If you’re great at keeping your outer commitments to others, but find yourself trading off on your commitments or expectations of yourself, you’re probably an Obliger. (Kelley is! She realized she was an Obliger when she recognized that she never missed a deadline at work and was always the go-to GSD person…sometimes at the expense of her personal life priorities.) 

Now, if you tend to scoff at other people’s expectations of you but good at keeping your commitments to and expectations of yourself, you’re probably a Questioner. You tend to meet others’ outer expectations of you if and only if you turn them into inner expectations of yourself. So if your mom is expecting you to plan the family’s Independence Day party, you won’t particularly want to do it unless you spend the time making the case for why it actually meets your personal goals (like seeing your second cousins or getting to eat some of Grandma’s famous dill pickle potato salad). 

And finally, if you tend to push back against any kinds of expectations of you – from yourself or from others – and crave freedom from frameworks or obligations, you might be a Rebel. It isn’t necessary that you never get anything done, but you definitely don’t bother with New Year’s Resolutions or rigid schedules because you don’t want to bind yourself to any commitments. You like unlimited freedom to flex.  

For me, my Tendency type is a bit of a hybrid: I’m an Obliger with rising Rebel Tendencies. If I commit to someone else to do something, it will get done, but I secretly wish I was the only person who got to set the rules. 

(Still not sure what your Tendency is from these descriptions? You can take Gretchen Rubin’s “type” quiz here.)  

Once you identify your own Tendency, it’s tempting to decide yours is the “bad” one – that, if only you could wave a magic wand and become one of the other ones, all your problems would be solved! You’d know exactly what you want to do with your career! You’d have applied for jobs every day this week! Your laundry would be folded for you! Your cat litter would clean itself!

As seductive as it is to try to “wish away” who you are, there’s no wrong way to be. Each of these Tendencies has unique upsides and unique ways of being: Rebels are the folks who change gears on a dime, making them super adaptable. Obligers are super dependable and big givers. Questioners make sure that every plan has been thoroughly thought through. 

So if you’ve been struggling with what looks like “discipline” on achieving your career goals, instead of beating yourself up, your best option is to play to your Tendency instead of trying to change it. 

If you’re new to the Tendencies and want an immediate takeaway to help you shift your behavior so you can get better results, check this out:

Upholder: You’re likely to be good at deciding what you say “yes” or “no” to and treat your word like gold. So here’s a funky, counterintuitive exercise: be willing to break a commitment if something else comes up that sounds more fun – or even take a “commitment hiatus” for a week or two. A little more spontaneity or flexibility in your life can create cool new opportunities for collaboration and can often expose you to relationships or ideas you wouldn’t have found within your existing network. (And all the research shows that the best job prospects come from people who are “weak ties” or in the furthest reaches of your network — acquaintances you wouldn’t necessarily agree to make a big commitment to in the first place.)  

Obligers: Externalize your internal expectations. The easiest way to do this is by enlisting someone else to hold you accountable, someone you can report your outcomes or updates back to. Obligers do particularly well with coaches. The example Kelley and I talked about on the podcast is the workout buddies who give each other one of their tennis shoes – because the other person can’t work out without you (since you have their sneaker!), you feel obligated to show up. As we say in the podcast episode, Obligers put their mouth where their money is, so put enough skin in the game that you take the commitment seriously.  

Questioners: Since you’re great at honoring the expectations you have of yourself, you can get creative in internalizing important external expectations. A great way to hack your brain is by making the argument for why an external expectation is actually an internal expectation. Questioners *love* to argue, so this is right up your alley. Boss just asked you to take on a new project? Instead of immediately pushing back on the responsibility, take 30 minutes to go write down all the ways in which the project might already be in your best interest before you’ve peppered your supervisor with a million questions. And, unless you have strong data to make you feel otherwise, be willing to give your boss the benefit of the doubt every once in a while and do a task just because they’ve asked you to. You don’t need a dossier or white paper on why it would be helpful for you to run that big project meeting. Debate your way into action by creating internal expectations on external assignments, and watch your follow-thru skyrocket!

Rebels: Whatever you do, do NOT go find a “best practices” book and try to implement it. People who don’t understand you will push this kind of tactic on you because they see your non-conformist tendencies and want you to fall in line. But don’t relent! Instead, find someone you can spitball ideas with until you’re able to put your own spin or flavor on them so they feel exciting to you. Somebody who pushes your thinking and helps you pick your own way of doing things. Somebody who finds the intellectual “pitch and catch” dynamic to be fun – like creatives, idea people, and visionaries. And use this outside party to talk through your values and how you can advance those values without being stuck in a too-constraining structure. Thought partnership and idea collaboration will help you far more than a rigid To Do list. 

Which of the Four Tendencies do you identify with most, and what next steps are you going to take to get more stuff done in your career (and life)? Let us know!

Want to learn more about our strategic framework for successful career change? Download The Roadmap to Career Fulfillment ebook right here!

SHOW NOTES:

• Career Clarity Coach Kelley Shields
• Editable career continuity planning worksheet
• Recession-Proofing Your Career webinar
• You can take Gretchen Rubin’s “type” quiz here.
• Email Lisa at Lisa@GetCareerClarity.com
• Roadmap to a Fulfilling Career eBook

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