About
Gretchen Rubin is an inspiring and leading observer of happiness and human nature today. She is known for her ability to simplify and express complicated topics with comedy and clarity to a wide audience.
She’s been interviewed by Oprah, dined with Daniel Kahneman, walked arm-in-arm with the Dalai Lama, had her work published in a medical journal, and had a Jeopardy! answer.
Gretchen launched a new collaboration with CBS in 2019 as a collaborator with a weekly role in the show’s “Before We Go” conclusion.
Works
Gretchen Rubin is the best-selling author of many books, including The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home.
Her works have sold 3.5 million copies worldwide, in over thirty languages, and she has a massive fanbase, both in print and online. She and her sister Elizabeth Craft discuss healthy habits and happiness on their famous weekly podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin; they’ve been dubbed the “Click and Clack of podcasters.”
Her program was awarded one of the “Best Podcasts of 2015” by iTunes and one of the “Best Podcasts of 2016” by the Academy of Podcasters.
To know and understand more about Gretchen Rubin, please visit here.
The Four Habit Tendencies
The 4-habit tendencies and a framework for Coaches and Clients to collaborate best within the habit coaching framework. Gretchen believes there are two types of expectations: Outer expectations, or the one the world places on us, and inner expectations – what we desire for ourselves and our lives. According to Gretchen’s framework, there are 4 habit tendencies of people:
- The Upholders who rely on discipline. They meet both outer and inner expectations with ease.
- The Questioners who question everything. They only comply with you if you convince them why.
- The Obligers who meet outer expectations easily but really struggle with inner expectations. Their need for someone to hold them accountable to their goals makes them most likely to hire coaches.
- The Rebels who resist all expectations and only do what they wish to.
Notable quotes
- “In fact, in what’s known as “Rosy prospection,” anticipation of happiness is sometimes greater than the happiness actually experienced.”
- “Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us mastery over ourselves is destructive.” And whatever liberates our spirit while giving us mastery over ourselves is constructive.”
- “Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision making and from using self-control.”
- “I’m not tempted by things I’ve decided are off-limits, but once I’ve started something, I have trouble stopping. If I never do something, it requires no self-control for me; if I do something sometimes, it requires enormous self-control.”
- “With habits, we don’t make decisions, we don’t use self-control, we just do the thing we want ourselves to do—or that we don’t want to do.”
- “You hit a goal, you keep a resolution.”
- “I often learn more from one person’s highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal practices or cite up-to-date studies.”
- “Outer order isn’t a matter of having less or having more; it’s a matter of wanting what we have.”
- “Forbearance is a form of generosity.”
- “It’s been freeing to focus on what works for me rather than what’s wrong with me.”