Key takeaways
- The Enneagram is not built on behaviour. It’s built on the reason for behaviour.
- That single mistake causes most mistyping, because different types share the same behaviours.
- Learn it in this order: the 3 Personality Pearls, then the 9 Primary Polarities, then the types.
- Online tests run at roughly 50 to 60% accuracy. A coached conversation does far better.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when working out their type is this. They think the Enneagram is based on behaviour.
It isn’t.
Pick any behaviour and you’ll find every one of the nine types can display it. What differs is the reason underneath. That one distinction is the whole thing, and it’s why so many people carry the wrong type around for years.
Here’s a six step guide to starting properly. It’s the same order I teach my Enneagram coaches, and it will help you skip most of the mistyping traps.
1. Why learn the Enneagram at all?
I’ve heard a lot of reasons over the years. See which of these sound like you.
- To understand yourself better, and the people you live and work with.
- To be a better parent, partner or leader.
- To transform inner obstacles like fear, procrastination, low self-esteem and anger.
- To stop having your buttons pushed.
- To be free of painful personality patterns and limiting beliefs.
- To help your personality grow to its highest expression, and help others do the same.
What people don’t expect is how far it reaches. When you see your own blind spots clearly and start transforming them, the effects show up in your health, your wealth and your happiness. I call those the three wishes.
2. Start with your own type
You might be sceptical. Good.
I don’t want you to believe in the Enneagram. There’s nothing to believe. It isn’t a belief system, it’s something we discover because it’s already there. So learn all nine types, discover your own, and then decide for yourself whether it has any merit.
The free Enneagram in 90 Minutes course is the fastest honest start. Eleven videos and case studies, no sign-up.
3. The two mistakes almost everyone makes
Relying on an online test
In my professional opinion they run at about 50 to 60% accuracy. On the types that look alike from the outside, that’s close to a coin toss. Learn from a reliable source instead. There are many good authors and teachings in the world.
Thinking the Enneagram is about behaviour
You’ll hear me say this many times. The Enneagram is not formed around what we do. It’s formed around why we do it.
And the why is usually hidden, even from ourselves. Making it conscious is what makes this work life-changing. If you know why you do what you do, you have real understanding of yourself. If you know why others do what they do, you can guide, motivate and inspire them.
Three types, one behaviour, three different reasons
Take striving to do something really well. Types 3, 5 and 1 all do it. From the outside they look identical. Underneath they could hardly be more different.
Type 3
- Does it well to feed an emotional need for self-worth.
- At their lowest, will cut corners for the sake of winning.
- Higher functioning, adds real attention to detail and quality.
Type 5
- Does it well to ease anxiety about not being competent.
- At their lowest, overthinks and over-studies instead of jumping into the water of life.
- Higher functioning, moves from research into action.
Type 1
- Does it well from a gut-level aversion to anything below par.
- At their lowest, becomes pedantic and rigid.
- Higher functioning, relaxes and colours outside the lines.
All three striving for excellence. None of them for the same reason. And most of them unaware of their own reason until someone helps them see it.
The order that actually works
Most people start by reading about the nine types. That’s backwards, and it’s why they get lost. Do it in this order instead.
Step 1: the 3 Personality Pearls
An oyster coats a grain of sand in layer after layer of mother of pearl. What you end up admiring is the pearl. What started it was the grain of sand.
We’re the same. The personality is the pearl. The hidden reason for our behaviour is the grain of sand at the centre of it. There are three of them, and each is shared by three types, which is exactly why those three get confused with each other.
Note which Pearl pulls at you. It’s a clue, not an answer.
Step 2: the 9 Primary Polarities
Every type, especially at lower and medium health, is wrestling with an inner obstacle. That obstacle is a polarity: two qualities pulling against each other. An inner war the type has to transform in order to reach its highest expression.
Put the Pearl and the polarity together and something useful happens. You stop memorising types and start being able to work out how each one arises, and even anticipate how it will behave. That combination is unique to InnerLifeSkills, and I hope it’s a real contribution to the Enneagram world.
Step 3: now study the types
Only now. With the Pearls and the polarities in place, you’ll read the nine types without falling into the behaviour trap.
This is exactly how our coaches work with clients, using worksheets for the Pearls, the polarities, and then the individual types. It takes 60 to 90 minutes and it’s accurate, because the client ends up with enough knowledge to identify their own type. Software can’t pick up the subtle reasons for why we do what we do. A good conversation can.
4. When you’re stuck between two or three types
This happens to nearly everyone, and I teach my coaches a simple way through it.
- First find what the types have in common. What behaviour do they share?
- Then look for what is significantly different, especially in the grain of sand. The reason.
I’ve met people who carried the wrong type for years before they understood the system well enough to see it. Usually they’d got tangled in the complexity. Understood properly, the Enneagram isn’t that complicated.
5. The growth path
The Enneagram doesn’t only describe you. It gives you a map.
Look at the diagram and follow the arrows. Each type connects to two others, a bit like a circuit board. When your type is young in its growth, and that has nothing to do with your age, you tend to take on the worst of one of those two types while finding the best of the other almost impossible to reach.
We call these the doors to growth. At your lowest, the door to the type that would balance you is closed, and the only open door lets in the other type at its worst. As you mature, both doors open, and both types offer you their best.
Every type guide sets out its own two doors, with the voices of real people of that type describing what each one feels like from the inside:
Type 1
Doors to 7 and 4. Learning to relax, play and lay down the burden of hyper responsibility.
Type 2
Doors to 4 and 8. Learning emotional honesty and attention to their own needs.
Type 3
Doors to 6 and 9. Learning humility, asking for feedback, quality and substance.
Type 4
Doors to 1 and 2. Learning to be functional, organised and objective.
Type 5
Doors to 8 and 7. Learning assertiveness, confidence and full engagement with the world.
Type 6
Doors to 9 and 3. Learning to slow down, rest, and trust their own knowing.
Type 7
Doors to 5 and 1. Learning stillness, focus and contentment in the present moment.
Type 8
Doors to 2 and 5. Learning compassion, benevolence and feeling with the heart.
Type 9
Doors to 3 and 6. Learning to act, decide, and say what they actually want.
One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, and other people, is to use the Enneagram as a map for growth rather than a label.
6. Then type the people you love
Once you know your own type, it’s natural to want to work out everyone else’s. Do. We learn the Enneagram best from real examples, and the people in your life are the realest you have.
You’ll start hearing the language of their deepest needs, and knowing how to reach them. One caution, and it matters. The Enneagram is never an excuse for bad behaviour. It’s a map, and a map is for travelling.
Where this could take you
Find your own reason to spend time on this. Then learn the three Pearls, then the nine polarities, then the types. With that foundation the types make natural sense and you’ll sidestep the common mistyping traps. After that, work with the growth path, and help your own type express at its highest in a way that’s genuinely yours.
By then you’ll know enough to start typing the people around you.
I tell my students the Enneagram is contagious, in a good way. If it serves you the way it has served so many others, you may want to offer it to other people, either informally in your own life or professionally. That’s what the Enneagram coaching path is for, and the Enneagram Coach Certification is ICF accredited and counts as credits toward the Level 2 Master Coach qualification.