Nine Personality Types

If you have ever wondered WHY you react to particular people or behave in certain situations in ways you later regret, exploring the Enneagram may help you better understand yourself.

The Enneagram explores motivations for behaviors that may or may not be healthy.

Behaviors express our personality type. The Enneagram helps people understand why.

After hearing an interview with the author of The Road Back to You, An Enneagram Journey to Self Discovery in May of 2017, I read this book. At first, I thought I had stumbled upon some weird theory. I asked myself, What was I thinking and why had I ordered this book?

Since then, I have reread the book and the Study Guide. Each time through, I discover fresh insights.

Turns out the Enneagram is an ancient tool that describes traits and underlying motivations of nine basic personality types. People adopt their personality style in childhood “to cope and feel safe.”

The author’s objective is to highlight self-awareness. And self-awareness means waking up to who you and I are meant to be by learning to identify parts of our personality that are self-limiting.

“The point of learning your type is so you can relax your grip on those parts of your personality that are holding you back from a fuller life”

Ian Cron

Because personality types develop as strategies for survival in childhood, we may be unaware of how unhealthy traits of our personality can hinder our current relationships.

Not realizing we said or did something that either hurt or belittled someone else reveals a lack of self-awareness.

Author Ian Cron cited a Harvard Business school study that indicated the number one trait of effective leaders is self-awareness.

Reactions are emotional. Responses are chosen.

Within each personality type exists Healthy, Average and Unhealthy characteristics.

And a person can move in and out of these ranges, day to day, even hour by hour or minute by minute. Reactions can range from an unhealthy default setting to average choices or else a chosen healthier response.

Self-aware people make healthier responses in the same way people can make healthier food choices.

Recognition of unhealthy tendencies within each Enneagram type can help people navigate through the traffic of daily interaction with other people.

The Enneagram pinpoints how different personality types see and respond to the world.

The point of self-awareness is to help each of us recognize those situations where you and I can react before we give ourselves time to think.

Self-awareness helps people side-step the pitfalls of personality weaknesses.

Because the book identifies healthy, average and unhealthy characteristics, we can identify and evaluate where our default tendencies have settled.

Self-aware people are not stuck repeating mistakes.

Lastly, the Enneagram can help people recognize and appreciate other points of view. Self-aware people grow in compassion and empathy for others, more so as they come to understand that not everyone sees the world the way they do.

In our adversarial, increasingly polarized culture, where people tend to react emotionally rather than respond with civility and good manners, we can all benefit from growing understanding of ourselves and others.

Be very humble. You could be wrong.

Ian Cron tells his children, “Never presume to have all the facts about anybody.”