Figuring Out Your Enneagram Type: Further Thoughts

I have been guilty of saying that the only requirement in finding your enneagram type was to find which fear ruled your life. I thought it was as simple as reading through the list of fears and finding the one that elicited the strongest reaction in you. I’m not sure I still think that.

The fears associated with the different types are vague, not in themselves, but in ourselves. What I mean is that it can be hard to pinpoint exactly why we do something. Do you insist on getting good grades so you can be perfect? Successful? Powerful? So you can have a maximum of opportunities in the future? So as to please a parent or teacher? Because it feels like you’re supposed to?

I’m not saying the enneagram is not at all about fear, but I do think it’s more complicated than that. I’d say it’s more about patterns. “Patterns” is a vague concept, but you could put it this way: we’re all just trying to protect ourselves from uncomfortable feelings. All of us have found a way to protect ourselves (specifically, one of nine ways) and we did a wonderful job of this! The problem is that as we grew up, this protection has turned against us.

I don’t think it’s realistic to make a list of sayings such as “1s have decided to protect themselves from the feeling of having disappointed loved ones by trying to be perfect.” I think it takes a lot more study of the enneagram and of oneself to be able to identify one’s own patterns in a list like this.

What do you protect yourself from? Why? How does this turn against you? How do you mess up relationships or opportunities sometimes before they even start? What problems do you face time and time again in different forms and why do you always seem to run into them? On the other hand, why do you succeed? What are you good at? What is second nature to you? Why do people rely on you?

The enneagram is not all bad news. There are wonderful things about every type. That, too, is part of the self-work involved in finding your type: seeing the good things in yourself. If you don’t see these things, you are not being fully honest with yourself and seeing yourself for whom you really are.

I don’t have a specific path for you to follow. The perfect recipe for you will be the one you invent. What has worked for me might not work for you; what has not worked for me might work for you.

For me, it’s been many things. Beatrice Chestnut’s The Complete Enneagram has been extremely helpful. I’ve also learned much from Pace Smith’s Wild Crazy Meaningful Enneagram podcast. My method has been trial and error, trial and error.

It’s not wrong to be wrong. I have found that “trying out” a type in the real world has always been a great way to confirm or deny that I am that type.

After this trial period, you may want to look back on your feelings, thoughts, motivations and behaviour, and how they support or deny your hypothesis.

Yes, I know I said, a while ago, that the enneagram is not about behaviour. But you need to pay attention to your behaviours if you want to figure out the motivations behind them.

You will probably find that you prefer different authors than I do. Maybe you don’t like the trial and error method and you want to proceed another way.

Finally, I hope the enneagram will help you know yourself better, care for yourself better, and grow.