Questioners and Obligers

A Few Questions for You Questioners and Obligers, About Treats.

I’m deep into Before and After, my book about habit-formation. One of the sixteen strategies that I’ve identified is the Strategy of Treats (which will probably be the favorite strategy of many people). By “treat,” I mean something that you give yourself as a…well, treat.
I’ve been thinking a lot about treats, and of course, I continued to be obsessed by the four Rubin Tendencies. In a nutshell:
The Rubin Tendencies describe how people tend to respond to expectations: outer expectations (a deadline, a “request” from a sweetheart) and inner expectations (write a novel in your free time, keep a New Year’s resolution).
Your response to expectations may sound slightly obscure, but it turns out to be very, very important.
In a nutshell:

• Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations (I’m an Upholder, 100%)
• Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense (my husband is a Questioner)
• Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike
• Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves (like my friend who said, “In high school, I never missed track practice, but I can’t go running on the weekends now”)

I recently gave a talk at LinkedIn about the Rubin Character Index, so if you’d like to see me discuss each category in  a video, you can watch: for Upholders, watch here; Questioners, here;  Rebels, here, and Obligers, here.
Today, my questions are directed at you Questioners and Obligers. There are a lot of you, I know, because Obligers and Questioners are by far the largest categories. (Many things became clear to me when I realized how few people are Upholders.)
Questioners: do you have trouble giving yourself a treat if you feel that it isn’t “necessary” or “justified”? In other words, do you feel like there has to be a sound reason to give yourself a treat?
Do you find it easier to give yourself a treat if it’s justified by sound reasons? “I’m getting a massage because studies show that massage increases immune function.”
Obligers, do you have trouble giving yourself treats if you feel that the time, energy, or money is more properly owed to someone else? Is it easier to spend time or money on someone else, than on yourself?
Do you find it easier to give yourself a treat if it’s framed in terms of its benefit to others?  E.g., “If I spend the morning playing golf, I’ll be more patient and relaxed with my kids and at work.”
Feel free to mull your relationship to treats, generally! You Upholders and Rebels, too. I’d be very interested to hear what you think.
If you’d like to be notified when Before and After is available for pre-order, sign up here. But don’t hold your breath. It will be a while.
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Also ...

• • If you're thinking, "But Gretchen, I'm dying to read Before and After. I can't possibly wait until 2015!" well, fear not. In the meantime, you can read my most recent book, Happier at Home. Intrigued? Here's a smorgasbord of options:
    -- read a sample chapter on the subject of "time"
    -- watch the one-minute book trailer, "Ten ways to be happier at home"
    -- request the one-page book club discussion guide
    -- read the Behind-the-Scenes extra (I had a great time writing this)