Episode 105: How understanding your tendency will help you get stuff done

00:51 Welcome to Unfrazzle, a podcast for solo business owners with a big vision who are ready for a kinder more sustainable approach to productivity. I'm Louise Miller and each week i share bite-sized insights to help you step away from the hustle stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world Before we dive into today's episode, if you enjoy what I'm sharing here on Unfrazzle and you'd like to support the podcast You can buy me a cuppa by going to BuyMeACoffee.com slash Louise Miller and making a one-off donation. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes Okay grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started

01:32 I often talk about awareness being your productivity superpower. The importance of paying attention, of becoming aware of what feels good and what doesn't, of building a picture of what works for you and what doesn't. And when you come at things with that deeper understanding of how you work best, you get to be more discerning when it comes to selecting the tools that are going to support you so today i want to share a few quick examples of why this is so important and something you can do today to help you build your own self-awareness So first let's talk about accountability. Right, so much of the conversation around productivity focuses on accountability doesn't it?

02:09 But it might surprise you to learn that accountability does not work for everyone. And not because you're doing it wrong or because there's something wrong with you, but because it's never going to work for your personality and your preferences So for example if your tendency is a bit of a rebel No amount of accountability will ever work for you Because your natural instinct will be to fight back against it The reason I talk about this is because If you are one of the people who accountability doesn't work And do you believe the people who tell you that all you need is some accountability to be more productive? You're going to feel rubbish about yourself and that is completely unnecessary. It's such a waste of energy so when I start working with clients one-to-one, one of the things i ask them to do is take Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies quiz So just a quick background as to what that is it's this framework that Gretchen has created based on a lot of research that shows how different people respond to inner and outer expectations

03:08 So an inner expectation being something that nobody else necessarily knows about, that we want to do just for ourselves. So it could be things like going for the...going to the gym and all that kind of stuff. It could also be things like writing a blog or creating content for our business so at the end of the day there's no client leaning over our shoulders expecting us to do those things. And outer expectations Obviously, are the things that other people are expecting from us. So this framework is about how we respond to those inner and outer expectations and it's really fascinating And what Gretchen Rubin found is that obligers are the only group who actually need accountability to meet internal expectations so she has come up with these four tendencies and obligers are the only group who need accountability to meet those expectations that nobody else knows about

03:58 And yes, fair enough. Obligers I think are the biggest group that she identified so there are a lot of us out there which might explain why accountability thing is so talked about but questioners and rebels who are another two of the tendencies she identified they need a whole different approach than obligers And then there are Upholders, that's the fourth tendency. And upholders are unwittingly causing all sorts of problems! So I'm going to share a quick story about something that happened to one of my clients to illustrate what i mean by that so a few years ago before she started working with me one of my clients sat down and with a very experienced business coach and she was told she needed to decide exactly what she was going to do when she was going to do it and put all of that in a fancy spreadsheet and in her calendar and she knew

04:44 Before she even started that approach wasn't going to work for her, but the coach insisted it was the right way to go about things. She trusted that coach as well and they were very well-meaning and because my client is a lovely person she did spend two hours sitting with that coach and setting this thing up...and then she didn't use it once! Which meant that the important things she wanted to be doing still weren't getting done. And as I've said, that coach meant well but in Gretchen Rubin's framework they were an upholder meaning that if something is written down or is in their calendar they're going to do it no matter what and You know, a lot of upholders don't understand that just because that works for them doesn't mean it's going to work for everyone. And in fact upholders make up a very small percentage of the population – they're the smallest group so the client in question having that experience is a questioner and she needs to be 100% sold on why things need to be done So it doesn't matter how much she schedules stuff into her calendar or how much accountability she has if that piece of the puzzle is missing then the task won't get done

05:49 And she's able to joke about it now, but that whole process was really painful for her and actually quite damaging because it made her feel like a failure. And then one other person I want to tell you about today...I had another person I was chatting with many years ago who was in his 50s and couldn't understand why no matter how hard he tried to get organised and create a structure for himself, he was never able to follow through or stick with it long term. It had been the cause of much frustration throughout his life But when we realised that he's a rebel, suddenly everything made sense. Of course he is not going to follow through with the structure that he'd set for himself! The motto of the Rebel in Gretchen Rubin's book about all this is You can't make me and neither can I And once we had figured it out, we knew we could try some different approaches to help him get important stuff done

06:41 So those examples illustrate why I don't share tools and tricks on podcasts during masterclasses or in guest expert sessions because it's counterproductive. If i tell you to do something that doesn't work for you, you're going to end up feeling even more rubbish about yourself and you'll end up thinking I'm rubbish at my job! so I know that getting into a groove with your productivity is all about understanding what works for you rather than trying to fit into someone else's idea of what productivity should look like So if you're curious about this, go and take Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies quiz. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes and then see if you can think about how you might embrace your tendency and use it to help you get stuff done rather than fighting against yourself all of the time. I think you'll find so much more ease when you start to work with your tendency! As always, I hope that this helps and I look forward to seeing you again soon

07:34 Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who needs a dose of calm productivity in their life and I'd love it if you could leave me a rating and review as that will help more people discover this podcast. If you would like to hear more from me to help stop faffing and take back control of your time, you'll find the link to join my mailing list in the show notes and I would really love for you to join us! So thanks so much for your support and I look forward to seeing you next time