* * *
TYPE 1: THE REFORMER
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Only perfect people are worthy of love and respect.
Focus of Attention:
- What is right or wrong. Correct or incorrect.
Challenges
- Excessive judgement of self and others
- Overly critical, rigid, judgmental
- Uncomfortable with emotions, seen as unreliable risks.
- Struggle with irritation, resentment and anger
- Guilt. Pleasure signals anxiety. After all there’s work to be done.
Strengths
- Honest
- Responsible
- Improvement Oriented
- Conviction
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
The ethics of a relationship are reviewed and perfection itself seems at stake. You imagine an idealized relationship. “What are our responsibilities together? What are we learning?”
Attention goes to perfecting the flaws in a relationship. Scorched earth policy when anger is present. The situation looks either black or white – maybe we should call it off.
Strengths
Once committed and convinced, digs into a relationship with extreme loyalty and validation of the partner.
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Perfectionism leads to procrastination
- Holding back for fear of error
- Self judgement creates sense of pressure and stress
Strengths
- Thrift
- Effort
- Dependability
* * *
TYPE 2: THE HELPER
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Love and survival depend on giving to get.
Focus of attention:
- Needs of others
Strengths
- Helpful, Caring
- Attuned to the emotional reality of others.
- Relationship-oriented
Challenges
- Intrusive
- Overly Dependent on Approval
- Pride
- Emotional contamination – can get lost in other people’s emotions.
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
- Losing a sense of self through empathic adaptation to be what others need.
- Being confused about having “many selves” each adapted to the needs of different significants. “Which one is my actual self?”
- Finding it hard to recognize own needs. Mind goes blank.
- Feeling torn between the safety of giving and craving personal freedom.
- Fear that love is contingent on their meeting others needs.
Strengths
- Helpful, Caring
- Relationship-oriented
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Impulse to cede to others expectations and be liked can interfere with autonomy of leading.
Strengths
- Collaborative leadership style.
* * *
Type 3: The Motivator
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Love and recognition are only for champions
Primary Avoidance
- Failure
Focus of Attention
- Tasks, Roles and Image
Strengths
- Achievement-oriented
- Image aware
Challenges
- Competitive
- Overworked and Impatient
- Out of touch with one’s own emotions. Intolerance of darker emotions and tuning out negative feedback.
- Image conscious
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
- Wondering if you’re acceptable without something impressive to show.
- Seeing relationship as an important performance. A task to undertake.
- Shapeshifting into an image that impacts and persuades others.
- Believing that status and material objects will secure a relationship.
Strengths
- Tend to be socially aware and have adept social skills.
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Competitive
- Overworked and Impatient
Strengths
- Energetic
- Adaptable
* * *
Type 4: The Individualist
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Others enjoy the happiness that I have been denied.
Primary Avoidance
- The commonplace
Focus of Attention
- Best in what’s missing. Worst of what’s here.
Strengths
- Creative
- Empathic
- Idealistic
Challenges
- Envy
- Moodiness
- Self-Absorption
- Feeling like an actor in your own life. Waiting for real life to begin.
- Impatience with the realities of life. Preferring inner intensity.
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
- Imagining future fulfillment through relationship. Not being here.
- Alienation. Sense of being different from the people around you.
Strengths
- Romance
- Emotionally engaged
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Unrealistic
- Unpleasant emotions can ruin productivity for days at a time.
Strengths
- Creative
* * *
Type 5: The Investigator
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Love and respect are gained by practicing self-sufficiency.
Primary Avoidance
- Intrusion
Focus of Attention
- What others expect. To blocking intrusion and detaching to observe.
Strengths
- Scholarly
- Analytical
- Self-Reliant
Challenges
- Withholding self from others
- Emotionally detached
- Isolated
- Avarice
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
- Sense of being separate from others, being invisible, going silent.
- Fiercely guarding your independence. Not sharing yourself.
- Non-involvement is the preferred state. Feeling either love or hate requires involvement.
- Your own emotions are intrusive.
- Sense of watching life from the viewpoint of an outside observer.
Strengths
- Independent and self-reliant
- Fives bring clarity to confusion. They are loyal friends, so long as the central focus is about your life.
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Useless specialization
- Over emphasis on thinking, rather than doing.
Strengths
- Systemic and well thought out
* * *
Type 6: The Loyalist
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Love and protection are gained by vigilance and endurance.
Primary Avoidance
- Uncertainty
Focus of Attention
- Hazard
Strengths
- Bonded
- Attentive
- Perceptive
Challenges
- Procrastinating
- Reactive
- Doubtful
- Fear
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
- Sixes can attribute their own feelings to others. You can seem to be angry or withholding if your Six feels that way.
Strengths
- Sixes identify the problem areas of a relationship.
- Enduring loyalty and support.
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Anxiety peaks near the point of success, which will make you a target.
Strengths
- Strong under adversity.
- Asks the hard questions to eliminate skepticism and doubt.
* * *
Type 7: The Enthusiast
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Frustration can be avoided by attending to positive options.
Primary Avoidance
- Discomfort and Pain
Focus of Attention
- Positive possibilities in all things
Strengths
- Optimistic
- Fun-loving
- Positive Visioning
Challenges
- Scattered
- Impulsive
- Self-Referencing
- Gluttony
- Charm and Disarm to avoid discomfort. Talk, plans and imagination as distractions from self-reflection.
- Feelings of “boredom” or “limitation” as a mask for emotional confusion.
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
- Self-referencing “I’m OK.” Assumption that others enjoy the Seven’s agenda. Not in touch with other people’s pain.
- Superior/Inferior dichotomy. Feels either entitled or less than.
- Expect to feel either adored or ignored. Sevens like relationships that mirror their own high self-esteem. They tend to dismiss or ridicule limits.
- Acutely sensitive to criticism. State the good news before what’s difficult
Strengths
- Life of the party, enthusiastic
- Fun and adventurous
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Scattered thinking “the grass always looks greener on the other side”
- Struggle with specialization
- Terrible at finishing long term projects.
Strengths
- Jack of all trades – Strong Generalist.
- Great at starting new projects.
* * *
Type 8: The Challenger
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Love and respect are gained by being strong and just.
Primary Avoidance
- Vulnerability
Focus of Attention
- Power and control
Strengths
- Bold
- Assertive
- Action-oriented
- Can be a rallying point, a tower of strength under pressure.
Challenges
- Domineering
- Excessive
- Controlling
- Confuses own version of truth with objective truth and justice.
- An all or nothing style of attention with a focus on extremes. You’re either fair or not fair. Either a warrior or a wimp. No middle ground
- Anger flares quickly, is easily expressed, and just as easily forgotten.
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
- Initial rejection of other viewpoints masks a fear of being disadvantaged.
- Compromise can feel like surrender
- Boundary issues – sees others as controlling and acts in self-defense
- Anger may be a request for deeper connection. Anger clarifies a confused relationship by surfacing authentic emotions. The truth comes out in a fight.
- Eights can retreat into an all or nothing world. Your ambivalence feels threatening.
- Low tolerance for ambiguity or misinformation turns your small oversights into major betrayals.
- Expect periods of strict control followed by disobedience bouts. Eights make the rules and they get to break them.
Strengths
- Protective and concerned with ensuring providing for the group.
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Can fall prey to “My way or the highway approach”
Strengths
- Strong focus on “getting it done”
- Great at pushing through obstacles and finding ways around barriers.
- Strong leadership
* * *
Type 9: The Peacemaker
Mindset and Emotions
Basic Proposition
- Love and belonging are earned by blending in with other people’s agendas.
Primary Avoidance
- Conflict
Focus of attention
- Environmental distractions. Primary distraction is other people’s wants & needs
Strengths
- Accepting
- Calming
- Steady
- Bonded
Challenges
- Ambivalent
- Forgets own agenda
- Self-deprecating
- Passive-aggressive
- Sloth
Relationships and Communication
Challenges
- Conflict avoidance. Going along to keep the peace. Retreating from signs of an argument
- Hard to say “No”. Hard to be the one to go. Wait it out.
Strengths
- Diplomatic and considerate
Performance and Productivity
Challenges
- Wanting to spend “a few minutes” on inessentials leads to loss of focus on priorities.
- Ambivalence invades choice. “Do I agree or disagree?” Why set a priority? Does it matter?
Strengths
- ImaginativeWith thanks and acknowledgement to Helen Palmer for her enormous contribution to this field, from which this ‘brain dump’ has been so positively much influenced.
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