#womencrushwednesday | Gretchen Rubin
Before we begin, here are some useful resources you’ll benefit from
The Four Tendencies Quiz: a personality quiz to find out how you interact with inner and outer expectations. Understanding this will help you reach goals, shape habits, and improve interpersonal relationships
The Happiness Project: this is Rubin’s personal account on her year of discovering what makes her happy
The Happiness Project Experience: material includes video courses and interviews that help participants start their own Happiness Project by identifying resolutions that make them happy and keeping those resolutions
Last year as part of my reading project I read Gretchen Rubin’s book “The Four Tendencies”. This book, in a nutshell, divides people into four categories depending on how they respond to inner and outer expectations and provides insights on how to interact with each personality type. What I love about this book is that it makes me realize the quirks of myself and others are caused by each one’s personality and are the result of social interactions; they are not caused by faults in our personalities but rather the differences between each and everyone. This is such a simple truth that I had overlooked until stumbling upon this book. What I’m most grateful of is how it explained a lot of my husband’s behaviors that have long baffled me and caused me so much grief.
Since I became interested in Rubin’s work, I wanted to read more of her books. The next book I read was “Better Than Before” where she explored how to shape habits. I read it from cover to cover and moved on to “The Happiness Project” which caught my eyes years ago but I never picked up. I consumed her books one after another and read three within the same month — a record speed for me and something I never do. Just last month I signed up for her Happiness Project Experience and pre-ordered her book “Outer Order, Inner Calm” which will soon be released in March 2019.
Suffice to say, I am a BIG fan of Rubin. First and foremost, I enjoy the subjects she writes about: positive psychology, habits, decluttering, etc. Secondly, the quantity and quality of work she’s produced are extremely impressive: books, podcasts, app, online courses, store, Facebook Live, all kinds of social media… you name it, she’s done it. She sticks to her favorite subjects which shows that those are her passions that she gets excited about year after year. I am most amazed by her openness to share and the ability to draw conclusions from diverse sources.
Now that I am blogging regularly, the subject of growing a personal brand is on my mind 24/7. How to consistently produce quality content, stay true to my passions and not sell out are things I need to figure out. It’s a blessing to have a such good example to learn from.
