How I worked out my type
Working out your enneagram type isn’t always straightforward, but as my journey demonstrates, the good news is you can still grow a lot along the way.
I first learned about the enneagram a decade ago and as someone who has always been keen to understand how they tick, was excited to learn about a new personality typing system.
As time went on and my relationships developed, I started listening to podcasts about the enneagram, and was fascinated to hear how this system seemed to so accurately describe how different personality types related to each other - in areas like what caused them stress, where they focused their attention and what they believed about the world.
Then everything changed in 2020 and my real journey began.
I’m sure I’m not alone in writing these words. I know of many people who made significant changes to their lives following the lockdowns of 2020, and it seems like this period of isolation caused everyone to reconsider what they really wanted from their lives.
My story is that my marriage came to an end that year and I effectively had to rebuild my life from the ground up. I needed to rediscover what really mattered to me and work out how to show up in the world as the most authentic version of myself, and the enneagram was a hugely helpful tool for me as I did this.
Enter the typing interview
Once I realised that I wanted to spend more time exploring the enneagram, I thought I’d dip my toe in the water by talking to a therapist who specialised in it, then see if applying the insights it gave me would make any difference (I hope you can hear my scepticism here).
She suggested it would be a good idea to take me through an enneagram interview, to make sure we would be doing the right work, which was especially wise as I was already under the impression that I was a type two. A few online tests had confirmed this for me and I also liked the idea of being a two, because who wouldn’t want to be known for being giving, caring and helpful?
She took me through the interview, asking a range of questions around themes like what I think success looks like to how I experience anger, then presented a few types that she had observed seemed to most closely align with what was important to me. And, surprise, surprise, type two was not one of these.
The first type she suggested could be right for me was type three, as this type focuses on gaining recognition for their accomplishments, and is driven by a desire to work hard and look good. As someone who works hard and likes to be appreciated for it, this seemed to be heading in the right direction, because who doesn’t want to be known for looking good and being successful?
The second type she suggested could be right for me was type one, as this type focuses on what is right, wrong, correct or incorrect, and is driven by a desire to improve the world, which seemed a much closer match for me - especially as I’ve always erred on the side of perfectionism and am very hard on myself if I make a mistake.
So, I’m a type one, then? Job done. And the work began.
Enter the foundation programme
The following year I signed up for the foundation programme offered by Enneagram Training UK, to learn more about the enneagram and how I could work with it more effectively in my own life. I’d found it such a helpful tool for understanding myself that I wanted to be able to offer that to others, and this was the first step of my training.
A key feature of training in the narrative tradition is using panel interviews to help people understand how each type views the world, where a few people with the same type share about their experience and answer questions about topics like what they focus their attention on and how they experience different situations.
I was in for a shock though, because one of these panels was going to alter the course of my journey significantly.
Panel time
The thing about the enneagram is that we don’t only display the characteristics of one type. This means that we can often recognise ourselves in other types or even look more like other types than our actual type (even before you consider subtypes).
So, I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard a panel of type fives sharing and realised that I resonated with everything they said. From not being a fan of small talk to dreading interruptions throughout the day and monitoring how much social energy I had available throughout the day, a lot of what they said described my reality.
After a few conversations with type fives to learn more about how they see the world, a sleepless night and a rough morning (as my poor brain went into overdrive processing this new information), I eventually came to peace with this new information about myself and spent the rest of the training learning about my type five patterns.
Ok, so I’m definitely a type five then. And the work began.
Life on planet five
One of the points that resonated the most with me about the experience of type five was the belief that the world expects too much of me, which means I need to conserve my energy. I can recall many examples of how I’ve tried to carefully manage my energy throughout my life, as I get drained quickly from lots of social interaction, even steering away from attending parties and social gatherings.
The thing is, I don’t behave like the stereotypical type five, as I seek out deep connections with people I find interesting, and this makes me want to be more social, which seems to be in complete contrast with this need to conserve energy. However, this also reflects the perspective of the sexual subtype of the five, where the emotional passion of avarice (a drive to hold onto resources) is channelled through the sexual instinct to produce a subtype that guards their time and knowledge and only shares it with a precious few.
So, I began to embrace life on planet five and use the enneagram as a tool to help me break out of my comfort zone. I used the lines connected to type five on the enneagram to move in the direction of types seven and eight, to see the world from different perspectives and challenge the limiting beliefs I had about myself and others - taking on the gifts of type seven in being more optimistic and spontaneous and type eight in being bold and direct to ask for what I wanted.
I also made several life-changing decisions over this time, including starting a new job, moving to London, and trying to be open to new experiences - including going to parties and social gatherings that initially made me feel very awkward. I found this season of life exhausting, but I also grew a lot and became more confident in my ability to hold interesting conversations and engage with people from many different walks of life.
Data from dating
Roll on another year to when I started dating, and I honestly thought I was doing everything right. I was trying to be more relaxed and spontaneous, and direct about how I felt and what I wanted. Heck, I even deleted the apps and tried to meet people in real life.
Yet, I struggled with the lack of self-awareness of the people I was dating and quickly became bored by the lack of depth within conversation. I started asking what my dates would do if they had no bills to pay or responsibilities to think about, and realised our values weren’t going to be that similar if they said all they wanted to do was to travel the world.
You see, I want to make the world a better place. I want to leave things better than how I find them. I want to help people understand themselves better. While I like to travel and explore the world, I doubt I’ll feel truly fulfilled from travel and fine dining alone.
Then a type five friend ventured that the way I was going about dating suggested I may not be a five after all, and sent me into a tailspin all over again.
How I landed back at type one
My friend had quite rightly pointed out that my desire to have an impact on the world was more one-ish than five-ish, and he’d also observed a few more characteristics that helped me land back at type one after a few months of study and reflection:
My response to anger. When I’d become angry recently, I’d felt embarrassed and ashamed of my anger (more typical of a one), rather than empowered by it (more typical of a five).
The inner critic. My inner critic was causing me to sweat over writing emails, procrastinate from speaking to colleagues and reminding me how I could constantly be doing better. While fives also value competency, they tend to be less concerned about making mistakes, so this prompted another tick for one.
Acquiring knowledge. My desire to acquire knowledge was being driven by a need to be productive (e.g., to learn and apply knowledge), instead of for pleasure. While fives also prize acquiring knowledge, they tend to be more interested in learning new information than applying it.
A desire to take action. My friend laughed when I told him how I thought joining a meditation class would force me to slow down and stop thinking about everything I had to do, and said “I don’t think a five would ever have that problem”. As he reminded me, fives are more focused on conserving resources, compared to ones who feel driven to do something to improve their world.
Energy conservation. It all clicked for me when I learned about Highly Sensitive People (HSP). I recognised my HSP nature explained why so much of type five resonated with me - from feeling overwhelmed by crowds, wanting to withdraw from new situations, and feeling a need for downtime after a hectic day - and realised I may just be showing up in the world as a more introverted expression of a type one.
In the end, I came back to the motivations of each type and realised that the perspective of type one much more strongly resonated with the way I viewed the world. In simple terms, the type one is trying to avoid criticism from the outside world, and it’s so clear to me that I operate with this perspective - even from the few examples I’ve shared above.
The many gifts of the enneagram
So, there you have it. A journey that has taken many years and one that will continue to do so as I become more conscious of the type patterns that have shaped my life.
While there’s a part of me that’s tempted to dwell on how I got my type “wrong”, I’ve also realised the many gifts of the enneagram, as my time spent at type five helped me to try out some new ways of seeing the world, and the perspective of the type seven is something I desperately need as a type one to help me break free of my (often impossibly) high standards for myself and others.
My work is by no means finished, but I feel much better now that I’ve gained clarity around how my enneagram type shows up and my hope is that sharing my journey can help others as they seek to work out their own.
