They meet deadlines and follow through for bosses, colleagues, spouses, and so on — but don’t follow through on things they want to do for themselves. Understanding this aspect of your personality will change your awareness of your own personality, as well as the personality of others. The Four Tendencies: An Obliger’s Story. Obliger-Rebel. Obligers can fulfill external expectations, but fail to fulfill their own internal expectations, and this imbalance causes resentment. Obliger rebellion can take on many forms, large and small. They do well in almost any career, as long as it has external expectations, and do particularly well in some careers that require employees to continually go above and beyond, such as corporate law, social work, medicine, tech startups, and wealth management. People with the Obliger Tendency who start their own business will do well with tasks like meeting deadlines and getting work done for clients, but they’ll have trouble networking or building their business, and can waste time on overly demanding clients. Think about it: if you know you needed something done, who would you ask — the person who routinely says no, or the person who always agrees to do something? Rubin suggests this might be because the other tendencies cause others frustration but are generally satisfied with themselves, whereas Obligers cause themselves frustration: they beat themselves up about meeting others’ expectations but not their own. REBEL? According to Gretchen Rubin, Obligers can feel resentful because of the amount of expectations people put on them, and underappreciated because it seems like people just expect them to do what they ask. Because of the Obliger’s tendency to focus all their energy on doing things for others, over time, those expectations can become overwhelming. a fascinating look into how you respond to and meet expectations; for you and for others. Outer expectations are the ones from friends, family, or work, while our inner expectations include things like our new year's resolutions, our dreams, and our goals. After we talked for a while, it became clear to me that I was sitting across from a classic Obliger. Obligers, and the people around them, need to be careful that their dominate tendency to always do for others doesn’t become all too burdensome and potentially triggers Obliger rebellion. Upholder-Obliger. Sandra helps them discover a new vision of the future and follow through on their ideas with enthusiasm and confidence. If you identify as a Questioner, you probably have no trouble … They need external accountability to get anything done, and if they don’t have any, they have to organize it for themselves. It also helps people that interact with an Obliger understand how to influence them and effectively help them. Some other positive ways to describe Obligers: People with the Obliger Tendency simply cannot meet internal expectations, for the most part. Questioner-Rebel. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading. For example, high-energy Obligers meet more expectations than low-energy Obligers. A sense of freedom, living in the moment, and doing what feels right in … Sandra is a business and life coach who specializes in helping clients who are craving a change but feel stuck where they are. She was meeting an inner desire and expectation by meeting me for yoga and having coffee afterwards but at the same time, she was struggling with not being able to meet expectations from others during the process as noted by her texting. They can try a few different things: As we said, Obligers sometimes feel exploited — but that’s because they are. Pair internal expectations with benefits to other people. “Do all tendencies have them?” she wrote. The Four Tendencies describe four different personality types based on response to expectations, both internal (the expectations you have for yourself) and external (the expectations other people have for you). For this reason, Obligers, more than any other tendency, gain the most out of learning about their tendency. This is known as “Obliger Rebellion.”. The latest book in that collection is The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (And Other People’s Lives Better, Too). They meet deadlines and follow through for bosses, colleagues, spouses, and so on — but don’t follow through on things they want to do for themselves. Instead of loose plans, next time we’ll make concrete plans. Required fields are marked *. The “Four Tendencies” framework describes how we respond to expectations. Then, because Obligers have difficulty delegating or saying no, they get burnt out. So what motivates Rebels? Obligers readily respond to external expectations, but not internal expectations. This awareness helps you to live and work more effectively and enables you to live a happier life. [04:55] The Upholder [05:23] The Questioner [05:55] The Obliger [06:25] Most fall into the “Obliger” category [06:35] The Rebel [07:20] Well-known personalities that fall into the 4 tendencies [07:35] Taylor Swift – Upholder Some obligers attach so easily to external expectations that they ultimately project expectations coming from other people and meet those. If you want to get into more detail, then technically, people fit into one of 8 primary-secondary combinations: Upholder-Questioner. Out of all the tendencies, they usually get along with other tendencies the best. When I read the description of the term for the first time last month, it immediately clicked for me. The good news for Obligers is that they can easily remedy the struggle to meet inner expectations by creating outer accountability. The Four Tendencies Specified. Obligers are the “rock of the world” — everyone can depend on them. If they get too burnt out or the expectations are too high, Obligers can go into Obliger-Rebellion mode, where they suddenly, without warning, refuse to meet any expectations: everything’s fine until it absolutely isn’t. The Four Tendencies: Obliger By Dr. Kate Whimster, ND on January 22, 2020 in Success This article focuses on the Obliger tendency and is the second in a series of articles all about the Four Tendencies and how you can accept … Because Obligers expend so much energy fulfilling others’ expectations, they get easily burnt out. Questioner-Upholder. Some people with the Obliger Tendency respond well to light accountability: automated email reminders, highlighted unfinished to-dos, or technology like FitBits might be enough for them. If outer accountability is the key for Obligers to get more of what they want personally, how do they create accountability? 3. Sign up to get my free newsletter. If you lean toward the Obliger tendency and want more of what YOU want in life, go out there and create outer accountability. I’ll cement these plans by following up with encouragement or a simple “looking forward to it” message to keep the commitment top of mind and to let her know I’m counting on her. The Four Tendencies Quiz - The Four Tendencies Quiz One of the daily challenges of life is: “How do I get people—including myself—to do what I want?” The Four Tendencies framework makes this task much easier by revealing whether a person is an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel. Have someone set up supervision, fees, deadlines, or consequences. Obligers have to learn how to create outside account… Please send along any examples that spring to mind! Expectations are things we act on, or not. If there are no external expectations, Obligers almost always fail to complete the task, no matter how important it is to them. The Four Tendencies look at how you respond to expectations. What I learned from this experience is that I can help an Obliger realize the desires they have for themselves by creating outer accountability. Of the Four Tendencies, my research shows that most people are either Questioners or Obligers — and Obliger is the largest Tendency of all (for both men and women). Obligers can take time for others but they can’t seem to take time for themselves. And context can change this, too: a mother puts her kids before herself as external sources, but puts work before her kids if push comes to shove. This article on the Obliger Tendency is a follow-up article to How Unlocking Your Natural Tendency Leads to a Happier Life, an overview of the Four Tendencies. How do they behave, and what’s the Obliger Personality? Rubin offers an example of a person who woke up one morning and knew she couldn’t continue to hold up her marriage of 18 years, and announced, without warning, that she wanted a divorce.