More Enneagram – What’s YOUR Number?

Ok, time for more enneagram. Let’s talk about our results. What did you get?  What do you think about it?

I told you about how I took four different tests and got a different result every time. Here is what my results were:

Fast Accurate Enneagram gave me three types to choose from: type 3 (the Achiever), type 5 (the Investigator), and type 8 (the Challenger).  It offered brief descriptions of each one and left it up to me to decide.

Your Enneagram Coach told me that I was a type 3 (the Successful Achiever). On this test, I got a tied score for 3 and 8 (the Protective Challenger), but the follow up questions tipped the results to a 3. I also scored high on type 5 (the Investigative Thinker).

Truity told me that I was a type one (the Perfectionist).  I also scored high for type 5 and for type 7 in this assessment.

Eclectic Energies typed me as a 5.  My second result was a type 3.  I scored so low on type 8 in this assessment that it didn’t even show up in the results. At all.

So, after all that, I went back to the Rebel Heart Radio podcast.  I paid special attention to what they were saying about types 8, 5, and 3.  Here is what resonated with me:

Type 8, the Challenger (or Protective Challenger)

I have some of these tendencies – I can be very direct for sure. Most of the qualities of this type that resonated with me were negative behaviors not the strengths and good qualities. I kind-of interpret this type as my Virgo rising – it’s the thing where people will ask me what I think and for better or worse, I tell them.

Type 5, the Investigator (Investigative Thinker)

I got this result because I do love to learn about new things, I will get interested in something and spend time researching it.  But I don’t think that my interest in anything goes as far as the way that type 5s are described.  For example, after I finish this post, I’m probably going to be done thinking about the enneagram. I’m also not as analytical as 5s seem to get credit for. And I’m just mildly, not overwhelmingly introverted.

Type 3, the Achiever (Successful Achiever)

The description of this type resonated with me the most. Type 3s are described as adaptable, driven, image-consciousness, optimistic, industrious, self-motivated, efficient, energetic, leaders, and can be workaholics.

The core fears for this type are failing, appearing incompetent and inefficient. Their core desire is to be valuable, admired, and respected. They want to appear successful, focused and productive and tend not to stop to appreciate what they have accomplished. Sometimes it is hard for a 3 to know who they really are because they have created so many personas to fit into different situations.

I feel like I can relate to a lot of the positive and negative traits of the 3, more than any other type.

So that is my exploration of the enneagram. The big selling point for any personality typing was that if you know your type and you know the types of the people around you, you are better able to interact with them in a more positive and productive way. So now that I’ve shared, you should too.

Did you get around to trying any of the assessments from last week?  What results did you get?  What do you think about my results?  Am I more type 5 or type 8 than I’m giving myself credit for? Do you want more enneagram?Let me know what you think!

Any Enneagram

I was thinking that I wanted to post something fun and not-so-current-events related for us all this week. So, I thought we could talk about the enneagram. Any enneagram.

Enneagram is a style of personality-typing.  Like Myer-Briggs only different. I’ve been listening to a podcast where they’ve been talking about it (Rebel Heart Radio).  They are REALLY into it. But in a fun way. I’m on the third of TEN episodes where they talk about it. Because it’s complicated.

There are nine enneagram types (numbers 1-9), then there are “wings” and “levels of integration” and all sorts of other nuances. As I have been listening to the podcast, I’ve been trying to guess my type based on how they are describing each one. They started with nine, so at first, I thought I was a nine, wing one.  Then I was sure that I was a three, wing four but not a straight three. It seems like at some point it all turns to mush, and you might be any enneagram. But I hadn’t gotten that deep into it, was it just dabbler’s skepticism?

I’m not about to let a little skepticism keep me away from a free, online personality test, so today I decided to take an enneagram test to find out.

There are a bunch of free enneagram tests online.  I started with the yourenneagramcoach.com version. The questions are pretty complicated and dense. I got the result that I thought I would, but I had just been listening to the podcast and was familiar with the language that this school uses to describe each type. I decided that I would take another version to confirm my results.

Next, I tried the truity.com test.  I liked these questions better. They were a bit more simply constructed.  I expected to get the same result as the other test, but I wound up somewhere completely different!

Ok, let’s try a third version, that will be the tiebreaker, right?  Not so fast my friend.  I took the version on eclecticenergies.com and got an another completely different answer. And I really didn’t think that I was that version. Maybe I was just getting personality test fatigue (or maybe I have an undiagnosed multiple personality disorder).  I liked the questions in this version best, they were the most straightforward.  I also liked that they give you scores on your wing.

After a break, I couldn’t help it, I decided to try again.  I tried enneagramtest.net and guess what? This time I got all the three types that I had gotten in the other three tests (this test gives you your top three and tells you to choose from the descriptions).

You can read up on enneagrams, but I think it’s more fun to take one (or more) of these tests and let them tell you:

Let me know if you decide to try any enneagram test(s) you take and what you result(s) got.  I’ll post my results in the comments in a bit.