You most likely have heard of the Myers-Briggs Personality Test and possibly the DiSC Profile Test, but have you heard of The Enneagram Test? In case you haven’t, let’s start with the Merriam-Webster definition of the Enneagram, It’s “a system of classifying personality types that is based on a nine-pointed starlike figure inscribed within a circle in which each of the nine points represents a personality type and its psychological motivations (such as the need to be right or helpful) influencing a person’s emotions, attitudes, and behavior.” According to The Enneagram Institute, the nine personality types are as follows:
The Reformer – The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic
The Helper – The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Demonstrative, Generous, People-Pleasing, and Possessive
The Achiever – The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptive, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious
The Individualist – The Sensitive, Withdrawn Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental
The Investigator – The Intense, Cerebral Type: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated
The Loyalist – The Committed, Security-Oriented Type: Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious
The Enthusiast – Spontaneous, Versatile, Distractible, and Scattered
The Challenger – The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational
The Peacemaker – The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type: Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent
The Enneagram Institute goes on to explain that, furthermore, the nine personality types fall into three Centers – The Instinctive Center (Types 8, 9 and 1), the Feeling Center (Types 2, 3 and 4) and the Thinking Center (Types 5, 6 and 7). “Each Center consists of three personality types that have in common the assets and liabilities of that Center…. For example, personality type Four has unique strengths and liabilities involving its feelings, which is why it is in the Feeling Center…. Most simply, these issues revolve around a powerful, largely unconscious emotional response to the loss of contact with the core of the self. In the Instinctive Center, the emotion is Anger or Rage. In the Feeling Center, the emotion is Shame, and in the Thinking Center, it is Fear. Of course, all nine types contain all three of these emotions, but in each Center, the personalities of the types are particularly affected by that Center’s emotional theme.” And then there are Wings. “No one [type] is a pure personality type: everyone is a unique mixture of his or her basic type and usually one of the two types adjacent to it on the circumference of the Enneagram. One of the two types adjacent to your basic type is called your wing.”
It’s a bit complicated, but I love that it deals with what happens when a person has lost his/her sense of self and thus unconsciously emits an emotional response of anger, shame or fear. So not only does the system deal with the strengths of the person but also his/her weaknesses, and then goes on to explain how those weaknesses are exhibited. The bottom line is that the Enneagram test/system will allies you to better understand yourself from a variety of perspectives so that you can strive to optimize your personal and professional relationships. Although as we know, sometimes even though you know all this, you still can’t help but react.
So….if you haven’t already done so, click here to take the Enneagram Test and see what you find. I took it twice – once for free and once for payment. (As an aside, the test that I paid for had 144 questions that were at times very difficult to answer. The questions ask you to differentiate between two approaches toward a situation, for example, and sometimes I found myself making almost equal arguments for choosing both answers – but I could only choose one. Hmmmm…..) And then let me know what you think…. I can’t wait to hear!
For more information on this or about the real estate market in Weston, Wellesley, Wayland and the surrounding towns or if you are considering selling your home, please contact me, Lisa Curlett (www.lisacurlett.com, 781-267-2844 or lisa.curlett@compass.com), to answer any questions or for a complimentary home appraisal.