I’ve recently gotten really into giving my clients personality profile quizzes before we start our work together. I got the idea from my parenting coach, Randi Rubenstein (yes, there’s such a thing…and I owe her for some life-changing results so contact her if this interests you in the slightest).

One of my favorites quizzes, Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Quiz, takes under ten minutes to do and gives you a huge amount of insight into yourself…as well as insight into how people you work closely with are wired.

I like knowing how my clients take action because

a) it helps me understand how to best present information to them, and

b) it helps me to know how they’ll receive the information.

The Four Tendencies

Here’s a summary of the different tendencies, if you don’t have time to watch the videos on the site:

• Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations
  • Easily meet deadlines
  • Easily keep New Year’s resolutions
  • Don’t like to let people down
  • Like to meet expectations — it’s very satisfying to them
  • Don’t need deadlines, scrutiny, or supervision
  • Look for the rules beyond the rules
  • Very driven by “gold star” and can be paranoid and boxed in, feeling compelled to get that start
  • Can get overwhelmed if things are ambiguous
  • Give advice often and are judgmental about how others should make habits and perform

• Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense — essentially, they make all expectations into inner expectations
  • Question all expectations
  • Only do things if they are convinced it makes sense
  • Make all expectations inner expectations because they have to question the validity
  • VERY motivated by sound reasons
  • Hate things that are arbitrary and unfair
  • Hate waiting in line
  • Only take advice from people they respect

• Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves
  • Are the people that SHOW UP when no one else does…they volunteer and are always dependable when accountable to others
  • Systems of external accountability are super important
  • Need to pay for missed classes, have accountability partners, etc.
  • Are extremely dependable with high follow through if they know someone is counting on them

• Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike
  • Want to do what they want to do at all times
  • Have trouble even imposing an expectation on themselves
  • Motivated by present desire
  • Likely to resist if someone asks them or tells them to do something, and kind of motivated to even do the OPPOSITE of that
  • Love disruption, in touch with what they want, and SUPER creative
  • Must come to their own conclusions and get on board; once they are on board, they SOAR and take it to a new level
  • To get the best work out of them, do not give a lot of guidelines or supervisions; give the challenge and let them meet it in their own way

I am a textbook Questioner type. I have a mix of some other types, like you will too, but after you’ve taken the quiz and read through the descriptions above, how does your type match with your view of yourself?

My guess is that you’ll say ‘YES, that’s me,’ like I did, but let me know in a comment below — I’d love to hear your take on it.