Read Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives for Free Online

valuable guidance to anyone trying to help others change: a boss trying to help employees to be more productive; or a health-care provider trying to prod people to take their medication; or a consultant, coach, trainer, or therapist trying to help people achieve their aims. If we’re trying to persuade people to adopt a habit, we have more success if we consider their Tendency. For example, a Questioner may present an Obliger with sound reasons for taking an action, but those logical arguments don’t matter nearly as much to an Obliger as external accountability. An Upholder can lecture a Questioner on obligation—and make a Questioner less likely to meet an expectation, because Questioners question all obligations. A friend told me her strategy when her Rebel father’s doctor prescribed a medication. “The doctor went on about how important it was to take the medicine. I know better than to tell my father what to do, so afterward, when he said, ‘What do you think, should I take it?’ I said, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it.’ He said, ‘What, you want me to die?’ and he takes it.”
    For the most part, although they may regret the downsides, Upholders, Questioners, and Rebels tend to embrace their category. I love being an Upholder, even though I recognize its pitfalls. My Upholderness allowed me to take the steps that led to a clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and when I decided to become a writer, it enabled me to make an enormous career switch. (Of course, my Upholderness also meant that I spent a lot of time worrying about things like whether a comma should be italicized in a footnote reference to a law journal. For real.) Questioners sometimes feel exhausted by their questioning, but they do think everyone should be Questioners, because that approach is most rational. Rebels sometimes say they wish they could follow the rules, but they wouldn’t want to stop being Rebels.
    Obligers, however, often dislike their Tendency. They’re vexed by the fact that they can meet others’ expectations, but not their expectations for themselves. With the other three Tendencies, much of the frustration they create falls on others. Other people may get annoyed by stickler Upholders, or interrogator Questioners, or maverick Rebels, but it’s “people pleaser” Obligers themselves who bear the brunt of the downsides of that Tendency.
    Obligers, in fact, may reach a point of Obliger rebellion, a striking pattern in which they abruptly refuse to meet an expectation. As one Obliger explained, “Sometimes I ‘snap’ because I get tired of people making assumptions that I’ll always do things as expected. It’s sort of a rebellious way of asserting myself.” Another added, “I work very hard to keep my commitments to other people, but I’ll be darned if I can keep a promise to myself … Though every once in a while I will absolutely refuse to please.” They may rebel in symbolic ways, with their hair, clothes, car, and the like.
    This contrarian streak among Obligers explains another pattern I’ve noticed: almost always, if a Rebel is in a long-term relationship, that Rebel is paired with an Obliger. Unlike Upholders and Questioners, who are distressed by the Rebel’s expectation-rejecting behavior, the Obliger enjoys the Rebel’s refusal to truckle to outward expectations. One Rebel explained the dynamics of this combination: “My husband is a big part of how I’m able to look like I function well in the normal adult world. He mails the rent check, which is nice because I always resent it being due on the same day every month. He deals with trash day, and moving the car for snow plows, and he makes sure the peskily regular bills are paid on time. (I really hate punctuality.) While when we talk through big decisions, I’m usually the final word.”
    But whatever our