Peace of Mind Organizing

Gretchen Rubin on self-knowledge

30 August 2013

I’ve long been a fan of Gretchen Rubin and her Happiness Project.

She was one of the fantastic speakers at the World Domination Summit I attended in July. Her topic was self-knowledge and how being aware of who you are makes happiness much easier to achieve. It was fascinating and enjoyable.

The talk was full of nuggets like these:

• When we acknowledge the truth of who we are, we must also acknowledge who we are not and who we will never be.

• What you envy is really revealing.

• We should always pay special attention to anything we try to hide (in other words, pay attention to what we lie about).

• What you enjoy doing as an adult is usually related to what you did for fun when you were ten years old.

• People are either abstainers or moderators — and once you know your own nature, it’s much better to organize things to suit yourself (this is fascinating stuff!)

• Gretchen has identified four categories of people that reflect the tendencies people have when it comes to habits:
  • Upholders, who respond to outer and inner expectations alike
  • Questioners, who question all expectations (outer and inner)
  • Rebels, who resist all expectations (outer and inner)
  • Obligers, who meet outer expectations but have trouble exposing inner expectations on themselves

In the talk, Gretchen explained the implications of being in each category. (I’m an Upholder, btw.)

You can learn more from Gretchen Rubin by reading her books, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home or reading her blog, The Happiness Project.

Or you can just spend 40 minutes watching the video of her World Domination Summit talk. Trust me, it’s 40 minutes well spent.

Gretchen Rubin from Chris Guillebeau on Vimeo.

Gretchen’s next book is on habits. I can’t wait to read it!

Tagged with: gretchen rubin, habits, happiness, self knowledge

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