New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.

---

The New Year is approaching and this is a time when many of us think about making and breaking new habits. So today we’re bringing on one of the smartest people when it comes to habits, best-selling author and speaker Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen’s contention is that before you embark on a self-improvement project, it’s crucial to have some self-awareness about what kind of person you are. She has devised a framework called the Four Tendencies, which helps you identify your personality type in order to gain powerful insights into how you make or break habits. 

Rubin is a lawyer by training and began her career clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Gretchen then went on to write a series of books that examine small and doable ways to boost our happiness in everyday life. These include: The Happiness Project, which spent two years on the bestseller list and sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide, and Better Than Before. We initially conducted the interview you’re about to hear back in 2017, when Gretchen released a book called The Four Tendencies. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How and why Gretchen developed the Four Tendencies framework
• How Gretchen’s framework can give each of us a recipe for successful habit change
• Breaking down the Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, or Rebels
• How these Four Tendencies are an overlapping Venn diagram 
• What “obliger rebellion” is and how to spot it in your relationships
• The value of forming an accountability group
• And why Gretchen sometimes calls herself a happiness bully  

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/gretchen-rubin-99-rerun