4 Ways to Understand What Drives You in Life So You Can Reach Your Goals

It’s a new year and many people like to start fresh with big goals like losing weight, getting healthy, saving money, quitting a bad habit, or starting a good one.

What are your big goal ideas for the year? Are any of them on repeat from last year or even many years before? Do you want to achieve those goals this year better than you did before? Do you want to understand what drives you in life so you can succeed this time? 

I know one goal I always seem to have is to lose some weight. Of course it is. I’m a woman. But I also have other big goals like being more generous and helpful, being a better teacher, learning more Italian, and being more spontaneous.

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Because I have these big goals I want to achieve I never get tired of listening to books about productivity, psychology and how to get motivated. I think understanding your mind and what drives you in life is endlessly fascinating. 

In this quest for understanding and personal development, I recently read The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin and I can’t quit telling everyone I know about it. My husband is probably sick and tired of me relating everything and everyone to what I heard in this amazing book and now I’m going to share my thoughts on it with you!

We All Have Different Motives! 

So what is The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin all about? It’s about what motivates each of us to get things done. In it she explains what drives you in life isn’t necessarily what drives me in life because we might have different motives. In fact, there are four basic tendencies that explain what motivates different types of people. 

If you want to know how to get motivated understanding what your tendency, or what drives you in life is, can help you hack your brain to motivate yourself and achieve the goals you have never been able to achieve before! It can also help you understand others, be more patient with them, and motivate them in turn. 

What Are the Four Tendencies?

If you want to understand what drives you in life you should definitely take The Four Tendencies quiz and figure out which one applies to you. Unlike other personality tests like the Meyers-Briggs or the Enneagram, this test focuses solely on what motivates you and is not an all-encompassing personality test. 

What are the four tendencies? Simply put you have the Upholder, the Obliger, the Questioner, and the Rebel. What determines your type is how you respond to external vs. internal motivation. When you know that you can change your life and achieve those goals you have set so let’s dig into each type to understand it better. 

The Upholder

The Upholder is the person who responds equally to external expectations and internal expectations. They want to please people and reach the goals set by others but they also value the goals they set for themselves so they are good at saying no and setting boundaries. They love schedules, routines, and planners and generally achieve what they set out to do. 

The downside of being equally responsive to external and internal expectations is that they sometimes say no simply because they hate to fail or let anyone down and would rather not commit to anything they think they might not succeed at. They can also get too stuck on a goal or habit and lock into it even when it’s inconvenient for themselves or others. This extreme can even cause them to become rude or judgemental. They also find it hard to delegate and trust others. 

As I read the book I knew instantly that I was an Upholder. After all, I always work hard to accomplish what others expect from me at work and in other aspects of my life. I’m also very determined and great at following through in most of my personal endeavors like sewing, volunteering, and writing this blog. 

But I did have one question. Why can’t I just decide to lose weight and do it? Why do I sometimes fail at fulfilling my internal expectations? The answer is that we all slip up even if we are generally good at doing what we set out to do. Another key to achieving your goals as an Upholder is being very specific about how you are going to go about your goal so you know exactly what you are expecting from yourself. 

The Questioner

Now, what is a Questioner? This type of person does not respond to outer expectations. They don’t care what you expect them to do unless they question it’s validity, find it acceptable and make it their own inner expectation. 

The Questioner will research things extensively, question the logic and efficiency of something and decide for themselves. They do not want to follow arbitrary rules or traditions and they need to know the reason they should do something before they turn it into an inner expectation. Once they do that they will stick to it without much supervision or extra motivation. 

If you are a Questioner you could be one of those people that drives innovation and improvement anywhere you are. You are always looking for the best way to do something and that could bring about creative and new solutions that no one else would have thought of. You are also strong for your moral beliefs because once you believe in something you will always act on it and if you don’t believe in something or you believe it to be wrong you will never do it. 

The weakness of the Questioner is that they sometimes get stuck in analysis paralysis, endlessly researching without making a decision. They may also question things to the point of annoying people around them, appearing to rebel for no reason, or even ignoring expert advice (from doctors for example). You may also hate when others question you because you have already done more research than they probably did and have made up your mind. 

If you are a Questioner, now you know what drives you in life. You are motivated by internal expectations that you have researched and deemed to be important and worthwhile. To reach your goals you need to do the research and decide on a specific plan of action that you can get excited about because you believe in it! To avoid analysis paralysis set a deadline. 

The Obliger

What about the Obliger? What do they do? Well, they are happy to oblige everyone else until they can’t take it anymore. They will go above and beyond for their employers and their families. You can count on them to say yes even if they don’t want to because they like to meet outer expectations flawlessly. 

The downside of being an Obliger is that you have a hard time meeting your inner expectations. For example, you may write all day for your work as a journalist but you can’t start that book you want to write. Or you might be able to help your family with absolutely any problem but you are unable to stick to a diet. Why is that? Basically, it’s because you don’t think your expectations for yourself really count, especially if they get in the way of meeting everyone else’s expectations for you. 

Another problem with the obliger tendency is that they burn out and when they decide they can’t keep up with the mountain of outer expectations they face they just leave or lock down suddenly without any conversation or warning. 

If you are an Obliger it’s important to recognize that you can burnout if you say yes to everything. Also, remember that if you say yes to one thing you may have to say no to something else. If you say yes to working overtime you might be saying yes to family time and who really matters more to you? Learn to say no so that you can say yes. 

So how do you reach your goals and live up to your inner expectations if you are an Obliger? Simply put you have to create external accountability. You can trick yourself into thinking that someone expects you to live up to an inner expectation. That could translate to having a workout buddy or having someone else reward you for an action. You could also think about letting down future you if that makes you feel externally accountable.

The Rebel 

As you can see we all have different motives. What drives you in life might not motivate me and vice versa. The Obliger is motivated my external motivation, the Questioner is motivated by internal motivation, and the Upholder is motivated by a bit of both. But what about the Rebel? What motivates them?

To put it bluntly the Rebel hates all expectations. Whether the expectations are external or internal they want to rebel. The second they decide to go on a diet they eat a whole tub of ice cream. When their boss gives them a deadline they walk out the door. That comes with obvious downsides. 

If that’s the case how can rebels become successful members of society and reach their goals? It’s easy. They have to want to. They are motivated by things they believe in and things they think sound fun or enjoyable. They want to feel like they can choose what they do and have the freedom to express themselves. 

This desire to do what they want to do or do what is very important to them can be a superpower because when a Rebel finds a cause they will pursue it wholeheartedly. They often bring change to the world just by refusing to do things the way they have always been done or the way they have been told to do them.

So how does a Rebel get themselves to do something? They have to think about why it’s fun, why it’s worthwhile, or why it will help the ones they love. They have to think of a fun way to do it or some way to make it their own. It also helps for them to think about all the information they have, the consequences of doing or not doing something, and the choice they have to make with all that information. 

For someone dealing with a Rebel you can help them succeed by always giving them choices, never commanding, and telling them why something is fun or beneficial for them. On occasion, reverse psychology might work as well. 

Different Motives Lead to Success Now That You Know What Drives You In Life! 

As you can see just because what drives you in life may be different than what drives your successful neighbor, sister, mother or boss doesn’t mean you can’t be successful too! We all have different strengths and weaknesses and we all have different motives. 

It isn’t a bad thing to be internally motivated. That helps you work without supervision and do what you expect yourself to do. It isn’t bad to be externally motivated. That makes you dependable and helpful to everyone around you. It’s not even bad to rebel against expectation. That means you are creative and you will be passionate about your chosen cause. 

So which tendency describes you? To be sure take The Four Tendencies quiz and I highly recommend you read The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin so that you can understand how to motivate yourself and work better with others whether they be your coworker, employee, student, spouse, or child! 

Take the quiz and comment below to tell us what your results were and how you feel about them!