Personality Types
Why does the same life situation evoke courage in one person, fear in another, anger in a third, and empathy in a fourth? Why do two siblings react completely differently to the same upbringing? Why does one person want to lead their whole life, another prefers to observe silently, while yet another works with all their might to make everyone around them feel good? And perhaps the most important question.
Are we really like this, or have we simply learned to function this way?
The Enneagram seeks answers to these questions. It doesn't give quick answers, doesn't put simple labels on people, and doesn't try to explain human personality in a few sentences. Rather, it gives you a map. A map that helps you understand what's going on inside you even when you don't understand why you think, feel, or act the way you do.
Most of us live our lives believing that our personality is our identity. We say, "This is who I am, this is my nature." However, the Enneagram offers a completely different perspective. It says, Our personality is not who we are now, but the result of the strategy we developed very early on to feel safe in the world. As children, we all experienced that certain behaviors brought us closer to love, acceptance, or security, while other behavioral strategies sought to reduce the experience of pain, rejection, or disappointment, and our brains began to repeat the patterns that worked.
Years later, however, these patterns no longer help us, but rather limit us, and later, if we don't deal with them, they turn against us. The same quality that protected us in childhood can easily become the biggest obstacle in our relationships, work, or self-perception as adults. Perfectionism becomes compulsiveness. Helpfulness becomes self-sacrifice. The desire for success becomes a constant need for validation. Caution becomes anxiety. Strength becomes control. And the pursuit of peace becomes the complete suppression of our own needs.
That's why the Enneagram doesn't ask what you are like. Rather, it asks, what motivates you from within? What do you fear most? What do you deeply desire? What is that invisible force that repeatedly pushes your decisions in the same direction, even when you know you should act differently?
This is what differentiates it from most personality models. Two people can be almost identical from the outside. Both are successful, decisive, confident, and effective. However, one works tirelessly because they want to prove their worth, another because they don't want to depend on anyone, and a third because they only feel secure when they have every detail under control. From the outside, we see the same thing. Inside, completely different stories are unfolding.
The system distinguishes nine basic personality types. It is important to understand, however, that these are not boxes into which people can be locked. It is not about there being only nine types of people in the world. Rather, it is about viewing the same reality from nine basic perspectives. It's like looking at the same landscape from nine different mountain peaks. The landscape is the same, but the view is different from each perspective.
Some seek order, believing that this is how they can remain good people. Some find themselves in the love of others. Some build their self-esteem on achievement. Some crave uniqueness, fearing they are ordinary. Some try to make the world predictable through knowledge. Some always prepare for dangers in advance. Some fill their lives with new experiences to avoid pain. Some protect themselves and others with their strength. And some prefer to create peace, even if it means sacrificing their own needs.
Perhaps some of you have already recognized yourselves in one of the descriptions while reading, but the depth of the Enneagram lies not in the first impression. As you progress, it will become clearer that it is not the behavior that matters, but the internal motivation that creates the same behavior.
In the following posts, we will thoroughly examine all nine personality types. We will look at their greatest strengths, their unique abilities they can offer the world, but also where their biggest pitfalls lie. We will trace how the same personality changes when balanced, when under stress, and when embarking on the path of development. Because we are all capable of growing, maturing, and gradually freeing ourselves from the patterns that once protected us but now hold us back.
By the end of the personality type series, you will view yourself quite differently, but perhaps it would be even better if you viewed the people around you quite differently, because when we understand that the behavior of another person is not driven by malice but by a deeply rooted survival strategy, anger slowly gives way to curiosity, and judgment to understanding. But of course, it's also possible that the other person is simply a sneaky worm, in which case it's even more useful to recognize who you're dealing with as soon as possible, because the people around us influence us, our decisions, and the course of our entire lives. Some bring joy and happiness, while others bring danger and uncertainty. We must pay attention to our fellow human beings because the fact of who is beside us crucially influences the development of our lives. Family, friends, colleagues, and the hundreds of strangers we meet every day. People are everywhere, and they affect us in many ways, but often words are not even needed, just eye contact, or a palpable vibe is enough.
If we lack sufficient understanding of people, terrible things can happen to us. But of course, life is not just a labyrinth of worms; the opposite is also true, and in many cases, someone we initially thought was a repulsive rat turns out, in time, not to require us to call the police on them. If we don't know people well enough, we might miss the diamond among the pebbles, or give up too quickly on a relationship that was worth saving. Without proper self-awareness, we might hurt ourselves, or hurt others without knowing what we're doing.
According to Kierkegaard, we should be most rigorous with ourselves and, after every failed situation, examine where we went wrong, what we did incorrectly. The best example of this is any spouse asked why their marriage failed, to which both parties could endlessly list the reasons why the OTHER made mistakes and where the OTHER was at fault. But if we were to ask the same couple to talk about what they themselves did wrong or what their own responsibility was for the divorce, then only crickets would chirp.
As we progress through the posts in the personality type series, we will realize that we cannot truly know anyone until we know ourselves. The realm of human nature is vast, so it's good to have a map that will greatly aid understanding, but we can only correctly interpret this map if we have a reliable method to determine who we really are and, above all, how we function. This map is the Enneagram.
The Nine Personality Types of the Enneagram
The Reformer (Type 1) is a person of order, justice, and conscience, who always wants to make the world a better place.
The Helper (Type 2) wants to connect, cares for others, and finds joy in being needed.
The Motivator (Type 3) sets goals, develops, performs, and can inspire others.
The Individualist (Type 4) experiences emotions deeply, seeks uniqueness, and sees the world with special sensitivity.
The Investigator (Type 5) strives for understanding, loves to analyze, systematize, and find connections.
The Loyalist (Type 6) seeks security, is foresightful, persistent, and can be an extremely reliable companion to others.
The Enthusiast (Type 7) is curious, energetic, full of ideas, and discovers life's possibilities with almost inexhaustible enthusiasm.
The Challenger (Type 8) instinctively takes responsibility, stands up for themselves and others, and is not afraid to face challenges.
The Peacemaker (Type 9) is able to connect people, create harmony, and radiate a calm in which others also feel safe.
Most people have already been able to pigeonhole themselves or someone else from their environment based on this much, but of course, this is just a very brief, superficial summary of the 9 personality types; the types will be analyzed in detail and very meticulously in the further parts of the series.
It will be difficult to see that although we consider ourselves very unique, we are actually just part of a very large group, within which every person behaves exactly the same way depending on their current state. Then there will be the realization when we recognize someone and will be disappointed, but even more powerful will be the mirror we have to look into ourselves. Some will be able to do this, others will not at all. Some will ponder, some will look deep within themselves and their lives will fundamentally change, but there will also be those who become angry, frustrated, and resentful, because many people are totally incapable of self-reflection, or even of admitting to themselves that they thought or did something wrong. The effect of our environment on us does not depend on the external stimulus we receive, but on what state we are in when that stimulus arrives. This determines how we react to news, someone's opinion, or even this series of posts.
This series does not offer solutions, guidance, or advice on how anyone should live to be happier. Everyone will take from this series as much as they want, or as much as they can handle. We are responsible for our own lives, and we decide by what rules and within what frameworks we live.
This series is not a self-help material, and it does not tell you what you need to do if you want to be a better person. This series presents personality traits and states within personality traits, and there will also be no recipe on how to function better within a personality state. Of course, I have ideas for this too, but I won't mix that in here (for now).
The Personality Types series and the Enneagram provide knowledge, but knowledge alone is not enough to change, just as buying a diet will not make you lose weight unless you follow what is written in it.
There is no correlation between knowledge and performance.
Knowledge alone is simply not enough to make us happier. If it were, then the most cultivated, most educated people would be the best and happiest people. Self-knowledge can merely be a tool to achieve our goals, in this case, a happy, higher quality life. This series of posts does not provide answers to the difficulties we face in our lives, nor can we gain from them the consistent courage needed to set our boundaries.
This series is an opportunity. Exactly the kind of opportunity that is lying around you in thousands right now, but opportunities are such that you have to put work into them, or if you don't, your life will change just as much as if there had never been anything there, as if we had never been there.
There is no ultimate, objective reality about anything in the world, including ourselves; there is no universal truth. But instead of wanting to know the answers, perhaps we should first ask ourselves the right questions, because only through honest, unfiltered questions can we arrive at the truth about ourselves.
If we are able to face who we are, or who we have become, then this is the first and most important step to finally free ourselves from a series of painful and everyday limiting behaviors, from misconceptions about our identity. Here begins our path to a fuller life, at the end of which lies what we have always sought. Whatever it may be that we seek.
In addition to my own thoughts, I used the books, works, and summary writings of the research results of the following authors for the personality types series.
Claudio Naranjo — Character and Neurosis
Isabel Briggs Myers — Gifts Differing
David Keirsey — Please Understand Me
Otto Kroeger — Type Talk
Paul Costa & Robert McCrae — Personality in Adulthood
Don Richard Riso & Russ Hudson — The Wisdom of the Enneagram
Annie Murphy Paul — The Cult of Personality Testing
Friedrich Nietzsche — Beyond Good and Evil
Søren Kierkegaard — Fear and Trembling
Hannah Arendt — The Human Condition
Jean-Paul Sartre — Being and Nothingness
Immanuel Kant — Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Arthur Schopenhauer — The World as Will and Representation
