As I was trying to go to bed last night, I was looking through social media (keeping myself up past my bedtime, of course), and I saw a friend mention something about the Enneagram personality test. I immediately started reading up about it and was intrigued, so I found a test online to take.

The Enneagram of Personality is a model of the human psyche which is principally understood and taught as a typology of nine interconnected personality types (Wikipedia has a decent starting point of information if you want to learn a little more).  Each person is usually considered to be one type, although it’s common for individuals to have traits of multiple types. It is commonly believed that it is genetic, but it is not proven.

It’s also commonly believed that usually, a person has one has characteristics of one of the types that lie adjacent to one’s own that are more prominent. This is called the Wing. The test that I took ranks not only the different types but also the types plus the wing.

My Assessment

So I take my test and get my results. I’m type 1 with wing to 2. So what does that mean?

Type One

I am a reformer, a perfectionist. “Ones are essentially looking to make things better, as they think nothing is ever quite good enough. This makes them perfectionists who want to reform and improve, who desire to make order out of the omnipresent chaos.”

I keep reading and learn that “Ones are serious people; they tend to be highly principled, competent and uncompromising. They follow the rules and expect others to do so as well.” Hmmmm….ones follow the rules. My family STILL makes fun on my on a regular basis by calling me the “rule enforcer.” Maybe there is more to it than we’ve ever known.

“Ones are often driven and ambitious and are sometimes workaholics.” LOLOLOL. “But whatever their professional involvement, they are definitely active, practical people who get things done. They are natural born organizers, listmakers who finish everything on the list, the last one to leave the office, the first one to return, industrious, reliable, honest and dutiful.”

“They are often excellent leaders who can inspire those who follow them with their own vision of excellence.”

While I can’t say that everything that I’ve read has come as a surprise to me, it was very interesting to read to better understand some core parts of me that are apparently built into my personality. I didn’t choose to be a bossy, ambitious, rule follower. It’s a core part of my being whether it is genetic or was developed at a young age.

Wing 2

A wing means that while it’s not my prominent personality trait, my basic type is modified by the dynamics of one of the adjacent types. For me, it’s modified by type 2. My type 1 personality is influenced by type 2. The Helper. “People of this personality type essentially feel that they are worthy insofar as they are helpful to others… Twos are the type of people who remember everyone’s birthday and who go the extra mile to help out a co-worker, spouse or friend in need.” This piece came as more of a surprise to me, but then the more I thought about it, I realized it actually wasn’t. I have spent huge chunks of my appointments with my therapist talking about my tendency to help others, to take care of others, to put other peoples’ needs above my own. We keep talking about how I need to step back and take care of myself (and lord knows that I am trying), but every time I go back in to see her, I have another story to talk to her about where she points out that I’m falling back into that tendency (sometimes obvious and sometimes not so much). Hmm…that one was a little harder to take in and understand, but again, maybe not.

Then I had to laugh because I realized that I know these things about myself, even if I don’t think about it actively. Anyone who is on Hinge (ughhh) will know what I am talking about, but there are prompts that you have to answer and you must choose three. One that I selected when I decided to give this online dating thing a go a couple of months ago (barf because I seriously hate online dating) is: My friends would tell you that I’m and my response was/is “incredibly ambitious, motivated and super type A, but also (probably overly) caring and willing to drop anything to be there for them.” If that doesn’t perfectly descibe type 1 with a wing to 2, I don’t know what does.

I digress…

So why did I only learn about this as an almost 28-year-old?

I talked to some of my friends and realized that I know a lot of other people that have taken this test and also found the results to be just as accurate for them. I learned of a friend that uses this test in her line of work very frequently as a mental health counselor. Immediately, I started wondering why we don’t use tests like these more frequently in everyday life. This test is common in many business workplaces and even in a spirituality context for many organizations according to the internet. But why aren’t we exploring these types of assessments in grade or high school? Using an assessment to help understand not only ourselves a little bit better but to understand others? To learn how to work better with others and build better relationships?

I’m going to do my part in spreading the word about this really awesome tool out there and continue to learn more about the other types so I can better understand other people, and I challenge you to do the same. Take 5 minutes to take the test and another 10 to read about the different types. Send the test to your friends and family and use each other to learn.