The Enneagram test is a popular personality test because it combines behavioral traits and the reasons behind the behavior.
This is your one-stop free Enneagram test resource. This user friendly guide explains the Enneagram system from its origins to personality types. You will learn to interpret your results and how to leverage the Enneagram system for building healthy relationships and advancing your career and personal growth.
The Enneagram is creative in its approach. Instead of classifying personalities based on surface traits, it examines emotional behaviors and personal growth as applicable to fears of all magnitudes and dominances. This is one of the reasons the system is used by millions globally to learn more about themselves.
What is the Enneagram?
The Enneagram is a nine point model of personality. Each point describes a personality type that explains how a person thinks, feels and decides on how to engage with the world.
The origins of the word Enneagram are Greek and describe the structure of the model. “Ennea”, meaning nine and “Gramma”, meaning drawing.
The purpose of the Enneagram is not to fit people into strict mold. It rather focuses on your emotional patterns and personal growth by establishing your motivations and fears along with your strengths and weaknesses.
What Is An Enneagram Test?
The Enneagram is a test that was developed to determine what your core motivating behaviors and traits are by identifying your most representative Enneagram personality type.
Answering the Enneagram test involves describing your responses in a variety of situations such as:
- Peace and conflict
- Interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics and relationships
- Logic and reasoning
- Leadership and followership
- Goals and aspirations
- Emotional nature and stability
- Confidence and self-perception
The Enneagram does not measure your cognitive ability, job skills, or competencies. The test describes behavioral tendencies and traits that are generally consistent throughout your life.
The average time to complete the Enneagram test is between 10 and 30 minutes.
What Is Driving Interest In The Enneagram
The Enneagram test has become a persistent fascination over the years because this personality model framework provides a great amount of detail and nuance whereas most other personality models describe personality traits in broad and vague terms.
These traits and test results help individuals not only improve themselves in small ways, but help them strive for and achieve personal goals.
Enneagram not only provides help for individuals on a micro level, but can be implemented in the workplace or any environment to help understand team dynamics, improve communication, and help you understand the people you work with.
History of the Enneagram
The Enneagram symbol has been around for many centuries, but the modern personality system framework has only been relatively recently created in the last century by an amalgamation of thinkers, teachers, and psychologists.
This personality system framework has been combined with the observation of human behavior and personality to give us the Enneagram that we know today.
The Enneagram is used all over the world today in most aspects of day to day life and many people rave about how practical and useful the insights gained from the system and framework.
Understanding the Enneagram
The Enneagram is a system that assigns you a core personality type that identifies your biggest motivator.
While most personality systems provide only a behavioral perspective, the Enneagram provides a holistic framework that examines behavioral motivators.
For example:
Two people can be perceived to be hard workers.
One person’s motivation may stem from the need to be perfect.
The other person’s motivation may be the need for acknowledgement.
While their behaviors are the same, their motivations are different.
The Enneagram system exposes hidden behavioral motivations.
The Three Intelligence Centers
The nine personality types are classified into three primary groups.
The Gut Center
This group mainly relies on instincts.
Enneagram Types 8, 9, and 1, are primarily focused on issues of control, justice, and action.
The Heart Center
This group is focused on emotions and relationships.
In this group, Enneagram Types 2, 3, and 4, are motivated by connection and by others’ perceptions, as well as by their own sense of identity.
The Head Center
This group is focused on thinking, planning, and issues of security.
This group contains Types 5, 6, and 7. They tend to deliberate before making a decision.
What Sets the Enneagram Apart?
The Enneagram is frequently compared with other personality systems.
The Enneagram system is unique in that it defines:
- Core fears, emotional and behavioral motivators, and stress response and personal growth patterns.
While most systems box people, the Enneagram motivates people toward holistic development.
Will Your Enneagram Type Change?
Most experts are of the view that your core type is fixed.
Your behavior may change because of things like:
- Age
- Experience
- Stress
- Personal growth
- Relationships
- Changes in career
An individual’s personality type tends to get a little healthier version as an individual matures.
Benefits of Taking an Enneagram Test
Insights may help to improve many areas in one’s life.
- Self Awareness: When you better understand why you react to a certain stimuli, you are able to make better choices that are more deliberate.
- Relationships: Knowing your style of communication is a clue to understanding family, friends, and coworkers.
- Career: Different types of personalities thrive in different places of work. Knowing your style is a guide to making better career choices.
- Emotional Growth: This personality system showcases self-defeating behaviors that stunt growth. Recognizing this is the first step to making a positive shift.
- Better Leadership: Managers who understand personalities improve team work and communication as well as reduce conflict and improve resolution.
Who Should Take an Enneagram Test?
The assessment is popular among an array of people.
- Students
- Professionals
- Entrepreneurs
- Managers
- Couples
- Coaches
- Therapists
- Teachers
- Parents
Personal growth.
Are Free Enneagram Tests Accurate?
The numerous free Enneagram tests available online assist in personality development without a monetary investment. Free tests are decent to begin with because they are of a low quality. Some may only offer basic results but a few may detail the motivational and character aspects of most.
For the best experience:
- Be honest, and do not select a more favorable answer.
- Also try to complete it when you have a few minutes and are relaxed with no stress.
When interpreting your Test results, refer to the descriptions that align with your highest scoring types as opposed to only focusing on the name of the type.
Use the results for self-reflection rather than a clinical diagnosis, as the results are intended.
In many cases, your results are of little value compared to a thoughtful interpretation.
Before Taking an Enneagram Test
In the test, to increase the accuracy of the results:
- Select a quiet place.
- Concentrate.
- Read the questions without rush.
- Consider your long term behavior as opposed to your behavior in the short term.
- Avoid overthinking.
Answering honestly, in the way that you believe is right, provides the most meaningful insights.
The 9 Enneagram Personality Types
Everyone has one Enneagram type that is most dominant and shapes their behaviors, fears, strengths, and how they make decisions. Even though people with the same behaviors can be grouped together, the reasoning that drives those behaviors can be vastly different and is important to know in order to make sense of those behaviors.
Enneagram 1 – The Reformer
Type 1 is one of the Enneagram types and people classified in that type are driven by the desire to make the world better. For people classified in this type, the world consists of right and wrong, and they naturally notice wrongs to be right. They value integrity, responsibility, and having a sense of high standards.
Major motivation
People classified in this type want to be able to look themselves in the eyes and know they’ve done the right thing.
Major fear
The thing that they are most afraid of is being wrong, irresponsible, or having a lack of integrity.
Strengths
Individuals of Type 1 are honest, disciplined, dependable and organized. They make great leaders and take the responsibility of others and the end result of tasks and expectations to a greater level of seriousness.
Challenges
They can excessively criticize and/or be a perfectionist because of their high expectations of themselves and others, and they can find it hard to relax and enjoy themselves without the anxiety of worrying mistakes they made.
Ideal Careers
Type 1 Reformers can be found in a variety of professions. Careers in law, teaching, healthcare, engineering, accounting, and even some roles in project management and quality assurance can be examples of where you may find them.
Relationships
In a relationship, Type 1 personalities can be counted on to be loyal. They appreciate certain values and certain levels of commitment, but they may have to learn how to be more accepting of others’ imperfections.
Enneagram 2 – The Helper
Type 2 has a greater enjoyment in supporting people and forming relationships of a certain type and degree of meaningfulness. They find making others feel valued and loved to be of satisfying fulfillment.
Core Motivation and Fear
The center of their being and principal motivation is to feel valued and loved, while on the contrary, their greatest fear is to be rejected or to be without valued relationships.
Strengths
They are emotionally supportive and caring, and their warm and kind environments extend from their caring and generous nature to all, family, friends, and even co-workers.
Challenges
Not focusing on the things they need to be doing for themselves can lead them to disappointment and/or fatigue of a certain degree in a state of emotional exhaustion.
Ideal Careers
They can be found in a large variety of different careers within nursing, teaching, counseling, all the way through customer service, coaching, and even person-oriented careers in the nonprofit sector or in HR.
Relationships
Type 2 has a great enjoyment of showing and expressing love and affection and providing emotional support in relationships. The learning of a great importance of personal growth is the communication of their emotional needs.
Enneagram 3 – The Achiever
Achievers are driven by the energy of reaching their goals. They are dynamic and goal-orientated.
Core Motivation
To reach goals and have achievements acknowledged.
Core Fear
To have achievements be considered failures and to be labeled as unsuccessful.
Strengths
Achievers are confident, flexible, and driven. They finish tasks quickly and inspire others to do the same.
Challenges
An Achiever’s focus on finish lines, status, and recognition can lead to an unhealthy work-life balance. It is important for them to not neglect themselves for the sake of success.
Ideal Careers
Achievers thrive in business, sales, as entrepreneurs, or in any focused area of management.
Relationships
Type 3 personalities desire partners who are willing to appreciate and support their goals as well as encourage them to be more emotionally open.
Enneagram 4 – The Individualist
The Individualist holds creativity and emotional depth in high regard. They are always striving for authenticity in themselves and others.
Core Motivation
To search for and show their true self.
Core Fear
To have no meaning and not have a sense of self.
Strengths
Type 4s are gifted in the arts, are emotionally perceptive, original, and have a strong sense of creativity.
Challenges
Individualists can have very harsh views of themselves and can become withdrawn. They have very high and very low emotional states and can get extremely unbalanced.
Ideal Careers
Individualists can find fulfillment in the realms of counseling and the arts.
Relationships
Type 4s value emotional and honest connections and are attracted to partners who are also honest and authentic.
Enneagram 5 – The Investigator
Investigators are curious and have a love for learning. They are more cautious when it comes to making decisions and will do research first.
Core Motivation
To seek knowledge.
Core Fear
To be incapable and to lose control.
Strengths
You are an independent analytical thinker who enjoys problem-solving and observing the world around you.
Challenges
You may have a tendency to withdraw socially, overanalyze things, and have difficulty expressing your emotions.
Ideal Careers
You will likely thrive in careers related to computer programming, research, engineering, the sciences, cybersecurity, data, or academia.
Relationships
You prefer to have trust and personal space in your relationships. You prefer relationships where you can have open intellectual discourse, but you will strengthen relationships through open communication.
Enneagram 6 – The Loyalist
Like the name implies, loyalists are very loyal.
Core Motivation
Your motivation is to feel safe and secure.
Core Fear
Your core fear is support vanishing and betrayal. This equates to feeling insecure.
Strengths
Loyalists are very responsible, hard-working, risk-organizing, and identifying.
Challenges
Loyalists have a tendency to overanalyze and make themselves anxious about uncertainty.
Ideal Careers
Your personality is ideal for a career in the service industries, healthcare, finance, administration, the military, law enforcement, the government, and risk management.
Relationships
Type 6 personalities love and thrive in relationships that are honest, reliable, loyal, and long-term provided their partner offers reassurance and consistency.
Enneagram 7 – The Enthusiast
The Enthusiast is a positive and energetic adventure-lover that thrives on new and exciting experiences.
Core Motivation
The Enthusiasts are happy, free, and excited. This is their core motivation.
Core Fear
The Enthusiast core fear is emotional constriction or limitation which equates to boredom and feeling trapped.
Strengths
Enthusiasts are very creative, energetic, adaptable, optimistic, and idea-oriented.
Challenges
The Enthusiasts tend to avoid emotions that are less than positive and have a tendency to start new experiences before they have completed longer-term projects.
Ideal Careers
Enthusiasts thrive in careers that promote travel, entertainment, media, adventures, marketing, event-management, entrepreneurship, and hospitality.
Relationships
Enthusiasts are positive and extremely valuable in relationships, but they can benefit from improved patience and emotional consistency.
Enneagram 8 – The Challenger
Challengers are independent, confident, and protective, especially in their relationships. They take on a natural leadership role in challenging situations.
Core Motivation
To stay strong and independent.
Core Fear
Being controlled or becoming vulnerable.
Strengths
Challengers are confident, resilient, courageous, decisive, and natural leaders.
Challenges
Challengers are often viewed as intimidating. They are often too blunt. Developing empathy and vulnerability is important for personal and professional growth.
Ideal Careers
Challengers find fulfillment and enjoyment in careers in business, politics, law, emergency services, entrepreneurship, executive management, and military services.
Relationships
Challengers value honesty and loyalty in their relationships.
Enneagram 9 – The Peacemaker
Peacemakers tend to favor stability, especially in their relationships. They are often conflict averse and enjoy creating peaceful relationships.
Core Motivation
To keep the peace internally and externally.
Core Fear
Peacemakers fear relationships and peace being disrupted.
Strengths
Peacemakers are patient, supportive, calm, and accepting. They are diplomatic and great listeners.
Challenges
Peacemakers often put their own relationships at risk by avoiding difficult discussions and making challenging decisions.
Ideal Careers
Peacemakers find fulfillment and enjoy working in teaching, counseling, mediating, customer service, community work, human resources, and the nonprofit sector.
Relationships
Peacemakers are caring partners, though they tend to prioritize relationships. They are often avoiding their own thoughts and self-neglecting.
Personal Growth Starts with Knowing Yourself
The Enneagram test is a popular personality test because it combines behavioral traits and the reasons behind the behavior.
This is your one-stop free Enneagram test resource. This user friendly guide explains the Enneagram system from its origins to personality types. You will learn to interpret your results and how to leverage the Enneagram system for building healthy relationships and advancing your career and personal growth.
The Enneagram is creative in its approach. Instead of classifying personalities based on surface traits, it examines emotional behaviors and personal growth as applicable to fears of all magnitudes and dominances. This is one of the reasons the system is used by millions globally to learn more about themselves.
What is the Enneagram?
The Enneagram is a nine point model of personality. Each point describes a personality type that explains how a person thinks, feels and decides on how to engage with the world.
The origins of the word Enneagram are Greek and describe the structure of the model. “Ennea”, meaning nine and “Gramma”, meaning drawing.
The purpose of the Enneagram is not to fit people into strict mold. It rather focuses on your emotional patterns and personal growth by establishing your motivations and fears along with your strengths and weaknesses.
What Is An Enneagram Test?
The Enneagram is a test that was developed to determine what your core motivating behaviors and traits are by identifying your most representative Enneagram personality type.
Answering the Enneagram test involves describing your responses in a variety of situations such as:
- Peace and conflict
- Interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics and relationships
- Logic and reasoning
- Leadership and followership
- Goals and aspirations
- Emotional nature and stability
- Confidence and self-perception
The Enneagram does not measure your cognitive ability, job skills, or competencies. The test describes behavioral tendencies and traits that are generally consistent throughout your life.
The average time to complete the Enneagram test is between 10 and 30 minutes.
What Is Driving Interest In The Enneagram
The Enneagram test has become a persistent fascination over the years because this personality model framework provides a great amount of detail and nuance whereas most other personality models describe personality traits in broad and vague terms.
These traits and test results help individuals not only improve themselves in small ways, but help them strive for and achieve personal goals.
Enneagram not only provides help for individuals on a micro level, but can be implemented in the workplace or any environment to help understand team dynamics, improve communication, and help you understand the people you work with.
History of the Enneagram
The Enneagram symbol has been around for many centuries, but the modern personality system framework has only been relatively recently created in the last century by an amalgamation of thinkers, teachers, and psychologists.
This personality system framework has been combined with the observation of human behavior and personality to give us the Enneagram that we know today.
The Enneagram is used all over the world today in most aspects of day to day life and many people rave about how practical and useful the insights gained from the system and framework.
Understanding the Enneagram
The Enneagram is a system that assigns you a core personality type that identifies your biggest motivator.
While most personality systems provide only a behavioral perspective, the Enneagram provides a holistic framework that examines behavioral motivators.
For example:
Two people can be perceived to be hard workers.
One person’s motivation may stem from the need to be perfect.
The other person’s motivation may be the need for acknowledgement.
While their behaviors are the same, their motivations are different.
The Enneagram system exposes hidden behavioral motivations.
The Three Intelligence Centers
The nine personality types are classified into three primary groups.
The Gut Center
This group mainly relies on instincts.
Enneagram Types 8, 9, and 1, are primarily focused on issues of control, justice, and action.
The Heart Center
This group is focused on emotions and relationships.
In this group, Enneagram Types 2, 3, and 4, are motivated by connection and by others’ perceptions, as well as by their own sense of identity.
The Head Center
This group is focused on thinking, planning, and issues of security.
This group contains Types 5, 6, and 7. They tend to deliberate before making a decision.
What Sets the Enneagram Apart?
The Enneagram is frequently compared with other personality systems.
The Enneagram system is unique in that it defines:
- Core fears
- Emotional and behavioral motivators
- Stress response
- Personal growth patterns
While most systems box people, the Enneagram motivates people toward holistic development.
Will Your Enneagram Type Change?
Most experts are of the view that your core type is fixed.
Your behavior may change because of things like:
- Age
- Experience
- Stress
- Personal growth
- Relationships
- Changes in career
An individual’s personality type tends to get a little healthier version as an individual matures.
Benefits of Taking an Enneagram Test
Insights may help to improve many areas in one’s life.
- Self Awareness: When you better understand why you react to a certain stimuli, you are able to make better choices that are more deliberate.
- Relationships: Knowing your style of communication is a clue to understanding family, friends, and coworkers.
- Career: Different types of personalities thrive in different places of work. Knowing your style is a guide to making better career choices.
- Emotional Growth: This personality system showcases self-defeating behaviors that stunt growth. Recognizing this is the first step to making a positive shift.
- Better Leadership: Managers who understand personalities improve team work and communication as well as reduce conflict and improve resolution.
Who Should Take an Enneagram Test?
The assessment is popular among an array of people.
- Students
- Professionals
- Entrepreneurs
- Managers
- Couples
- Coaches
- Therapists
- Teachers
- Parents
Personal growth.
Are Free Enneagram Tests Accurate?
The numerous free Enneagram tests available online assist in personality development without a monetary investment. Free tests are decent to begin with because they are of a low quality. Some may only offer basic results but a few may detail the motivational and character aspects of most.
For the best experience:
- Be honest, and do not select a more favorable answer.
- Try to complete it when you have a few minutes and are relaxed with no stress.
When interpreting your Test results, refer to the descriptions that align with your highest scoring types as opposed to only focusing on the name of the type.
Use the results for self-reflection rather than a clinical diagnosis, as the results are intended.
In many cases, your results are of little value compared to a thoughtful interpretation.
Before Taking an Enneagram Test
In the test, to increase the accuracy of the results:
- Select a quiet place.
- Concentrate.
- Read the questions without rush.
- Consider your long term behavior as opposed to your behavior in the short term.
- Avoid overthinking.
Answering honestly, in the way that you believe is right, provides the most meaningful insights.
The 9 Enneagram Personality Types
Everyone has one Enneagram type that is most dominant and shapes their behaviors, fears, strengths, and how they make decisions. Even though people with the same behaviors can be grouped together, the reasoning that drives those behaviors can be vastly different and is important to know in order to make sense of those behaviors.
Type 1 – The Reformer
Type 1 is one of the Enneagram types and people classified in that type are driven by the desire to make the world better. For people classified in this type, the world consists of right and wrong, and they naturally notice wrongs to be right. They value integrity, responsibility, and having a sense of high standards.
Major motivation
People classified in this type want to be able to look themselves in the eyes and know they’ve done the right thing.
Major fear
The thing that they are most afraid of is being wrong, irresponsible, or having a lack of integrity.
Strengths
Individuals of Type 1 are honest, disciplined, dependable and organized. They make great leaders and take the responsibility of others and the end result of tasks and expectations to a greater level of seriousness.
Challenges
They can excessively criticize and/or be a perfectionist because of their high expectations of themselves and others, and they can find it hard to relax and enjoy themselves without the anxiety of worrying mistakes they made.
Ideal Careers
Type 1 Reformers can be found in a variety of professions. Careers in law, teaching, healthcare, engineering, accounting, and even some roles in project management and quality assurance can be examples of where you may find them.
Relationships
In a relationship, Type 1 personalities can be counted on to be loyal. They appreciate certain values and certain levels of commitment, but they may have to learn how to be more accepting of others’ imperfections.
Type 2 – The Helper
Type 2 has a greater enjoyment in supporting people and forming relationships of a certain type and degree of meaningfulness. They find making others feel valued and loved to be of satisfying fulfillment.
Core Motivation and Fear
The center of their being and principal motivation is to feel valued and loved, while on the contrary, their greatest fear is to be rejected or to be without valued relationships.
Strengths
They are emotionally supportive and caring, and their warm and kind environments extend from their caring and generous nature to all, family, friends, and even co-workers.
Challenges
Not focusing on the things they need to be doing for themselves can lead them to disappointment and/or fatigue of a certain degree in a state of emotional exhaustion.
Ideal Careers
They can be found in a large variety of different careers within nursing, teaching, counseling, all the way through customer service, coaching, and even person-oriented careers in the nonprofit sector or in HR.
Relationships
Type 2 has a great enjoyment of showing and expressing love and affection and providing emotional support in relationships. The learning of a great importance of personal growth is the communication of their emotional needs.
Type 3 – The Achiever
Achievers are driven by the energy of reaching their goals. They are dynamic and goal-orientated.
Core Motivation
To reach goals and have achievements acknowledged.
Core Fear
To have achievements be considered failures and to be labeled as unsuccessful.
Strengths
Achievers are confident, flexible, and driven. They finish tasks quickly and inspire others to do the same.
Challenges
An Achiever’s focus on finish lines, status, and recognition can lead to an unhealthy work-life balance. It is important for them to not neglect themselves for the sake of success.
Ideal Careers
Achievers thrive in business, sales, as entrepreneurs, or in any focused area of management.
Relationships
Type 3 personalities desire partners who are willing to appreciate and support their goals as well as encourage them to be more emotionally open.
Also read:- MBTI Test: Meaning, Personality Types, XNXP Explained
Type 4 – The Individualist
The Individualist holds creativity and emotional depth in high regard. They are always striving for authenticity in themselves and others.
Core Motivation
To search for and show their true self.
Core Fear
To have no meaning and not have a sense of self.
Strengths
Type 4s are gifted in the arts, are emotionally perceptive, original, and have a strong sense of creativity.
Challenges
Individualists can have very harsh views of themselves and can become withdrawn. They have very high and very low emotional states and can get extremely unbalanced.
Ideal Careers
Individualists can find fulfillment in the realms of counseling and the arts.
Relationships
Type 4s value emotional and honest connections and are attracted to partners who are also honest and authentic.
Type 5 – The Investigator
Investigators are curious and have a love for learning. They are more cautious when it comes to making decisions and will do research first.
Core Motivation
To seek knowledge.
Core Fear
To be incapable and to lose control.
Strengths
You are an independent analytical thinker who enjoys problem-solving and observing the world around you.
Challenges
You may have a tendency to withdraw socially, overanalyze things, and have difficulty expressing your emotions.
Ideal Careers
You will likely thrive in careers related to computer programming, research, engineering, the sciences, cybersecurity, data, or academia.
Relationships
You prefer to have trust and personal space in your relationships. You prefer relationships where you can have open intellectual discourse, but you will strengthen relationships through open communication.
Type 6 – The Loyalist
Like the name implies, loyalists are very loyal.
Core Motivation
Your motivation is to feel safe and secure.
Core Fear
Your core fear is support vanishing and betrayal. This equates to feeling insecure.
Strengths
Loyalists are very responsible, hard-working, risk-organizing, and identifying.
Challenges
Loyalists have a tendency to overanalyze and make themselves anxious about uncertainty.
Ideal Careers
Your personality is ideal for a career in the service industries, healthcare, finance, administration, the military, law enforcement, the government, and risk management.
Relationships
Type 6 personalities love and thrive in relationships that are honest, reliable, loyal, and long-term provided their partner offers reassurance and consistency.
Type 7 – The Enthusiast
The Enthusiast is a positive and energetic adventure-lover that thrives on new and exciting experiences.
Core Motivation
The Enthusiasts are happy, free, and excited. This is their core motivation.
Core Fear
The Enthusiast core fear is emotional constriction or limitation which equates to boredom and feeling trapped.
Strengths
Enthusiasts are very creative, energetic, adaptable, optimistic, and idea-oriented.
Challenges
The Enthusiasts tend to avoid emotions that are less than positive and have a tendency to start new experiences before they have completed longer-term projects.
Ideal Careers
Enthusiasts thrive in careers that promote travel, entertainment, media, adventures, marketing, event-management, entrepreneurship, and hospitality.
Relationships
Enthusiasts are positive and extremely valuable in relationships, but they can benefit from improved patience and emotional consistency.
Type 8 – The Challenger
Challengers are independent, confident, and protective, especially in their relationships. They take on a natural leadership role in challenging situations.
Core Motivation
To stay strong and independent.
Core Fear
Being controlled or becoming vulnerable.
Strengths
Challengers are confident, resilient, courageous, decisive, and natural leaders.
Challenges
Challengers are often viewed as intimidating. They are often too blunt. Developing empathy and vulnerability is important for personal and professional growth.
Ideal Careers
Challengers find fulfillment and enjoyment in careers in business, politics, law, emergency services, entrepreneurship, executive management, and military services.
Relationships
Challengers value honesty and loyalty in their relationships.
Type 9 – The Peacemaker
Peacemakers tend to favor stability, especially in their relationships. They are often conflict averse and enjoy creating peaceful relationships.
Core Motivation
To keep the peace internally and externally.
Core Fear
Peacemakers fear relationships and peace being disrupted.
Strengths
Peacemakers are patient, supportive, calm, and accepting. They are diplomatic and great listeners.
Challenges
Peacemakers often put their own relationships at risk by avoiding difficult discussions and making challenging decisions.
Ideal Careers
Peacemakers find fulfillment and enjoy working in teaching, counseling, mediating, customer service, community work, human resources, and the nonprofit sector.
Relationships
Peacemakers are caring partners, though they tend to prioritize relationships. They are often avoiding their own thoughts and self-neglecting.
Is There a Best Enneagram Type?
Many wonder, is there a best Enneagram type? No, not really.
There is no best or worst personality type. Plus, every type has its upsides, downsides, and areas in which they can improve. Rather, it depends on your own level of self-awareness and how much you are willing to grow and develop yourself.
Consider these examples:
- A healthy Enneagram type 1 is motivating and driven by integrity.
- A healthy Enneagram type 2 is caring and compassionate.
- A healthy Enneagram type 3 is inspiring and achievement-oriented.
- A healthy Enneagram type 4 is supportive of creativity and being true to yourself.
- A healthy Enneagram type 5 seeks knowledge and is helpful in solving difficult issues.
- A healthy Enneagram type 6 is supportive in establishing a safe and secure atmosphere.
- A healthy Enneagram type 7 is helpful and supportive of new ideas and initiatives.
- A healthy Enneagram type 8 is courageous and is a good leader.
- A healthy Enneagram type 9 is good at promoting peace and teamwork.
The aim is to become the healthiest version of your personality, rather than attempting to be one of the other Enneagram types.
How to Read Your Enneagram Results
When you take an Enneagram test, you get a score for all nine types, and most of the time, one type emerges as your primary; however, you may find that other types score with notable results.
It is important to understand these results. Do not concentrate on the type that scored the highest, and you may find that some of the types you score highly on are a good reflection of your motivations. Take the time to learn the top three scores and/or those types that are close in scores.
The Enneagram is a tool for self-discovery, not a rigid classification system. Think of your result as a way to jumpstart a process of self-discovery, and a jumpstart to begin forming actionable goals to grow as a person.
What about Enneagram Wings?
A defining trait of the Enneagram is its wings.
A wing is a personality type that resides next to your core type. When the Enneagram is drawn, as with most drawings, your core type will be nestled amongst the other numbers.
To illustrate, consider these examples.
One of the most defining traits of the Type 1 personality is a Type 9 wing or a Type 2 wing.
Type 5 personalities may embody Type 4 or Type 6 wings.
Lastly, a Type 8 personality may embody Type 7 wing or a Type 9 wing.
Wings are not as defining as the core type. But they do add a depth to your personality.
The type of your personality may be the same for two different individuals; however, your wings will ensure you are not the same as that other person.
Stress and Growth in the Enneagram
The Enneagram is a very effective system for a number of reasons. However, one of its most distinguishing qualities is the varying behavior of the individual when under stress and while growing.
Behavior Under Stress
If your core type is the same as someone else, you will likely adopt a type of behavior that resembles that core type while under most normal circumstances. However, when you experience challenging situations like stress, loss of control, or some type of emotional difficulty, your behavior may then resemble that of another personality type.
For example, normally calm and organized individuals may become, in the worst of times, withdrawn, impulsive, and controlling.
The Enneagram is unique in that it is able to recognize this behavior and encourages individuals to respond intentionally as opposed to the automatic mode that most people likely exist in.
Behavior while Growing
As you begin operating in a more healthy way, the Enneagram helps those around you recognize the growth as well.
Self-growth may look like the following:
- Better emotional control
- Improved communication
- Increased confidence
- Greater empathy
- Stronger relationships
- Healthier decision making
Self-improvement is the goal of the Enneagram, not the achievement of perfection.
How Accurate is the Enneagram Test?
One common question is if Enneagram tests are accurate.
The answer is somewhat complex.
It depends on the quality of the Enneagram assessment. Good assessments take time and thought whereas shorter ones can provide unreliable results.
The accuracy of Enneagram results is also impacted by how honest you are in your responses. If you select answers based on the person you hope to become rather than the person you are in the present, your results will likely have a large margin of error.
The Enneagram is primarily a self-awareness tool. Whereas formal psychiatric assessments have a large amount of standardization, the Enneagram provides options for personal insight, coaching, and education. Enneagrams should not be used in the context of mental illness diagnostic assessments.
Many people like the Enneagram because results often have more meaning than the results of other personality frameworks, especially because the Enneagram often illustrates how your personality is structured behind your motivations and emotional patterns.
Where Can You Take a Free Enneagram Test?
Many people are interested in determining their personality type and many websites provide a free Enneagram test. Most free Enneagram tests provide a number of questions about your preferences, motivations, and behaviors.
When you select a free Enneagram test, select one that:
- Provides a large number of questions
- Provides a large amount of information about the Enneagram’s nine personality types
- Provides information about wings, strengths, and areas for growth
- Provides a personalized report of results rather than “Type 3”
Remember, no online personality test is perfect. You should look at the highest descriptions of your types for more than the score, and draw more information from those.
Enneagram vs. Myers-Briggs (MBTI)
The Enneagram vs. Myers-Briggs (MBTI) is one of the great personality system comparisons we see today.
The Enneagram covers the way people think and act, and why. Here we find motivations, fears, and emotional growth.
MBTI covers the way a person processes and interacts with the world. It covers the ways in which decisions and judgments are made, and then sorts people into one of the sixteen types based on whether they prefer to think, feel, or act, and to what degree.
The MBTI adds a layer of practicality and the Enneagram depth of insight. This is why many people like to use the two systems in tandem.
Enneagram Impact
Learning your type can help your self-improvement in a lot of ways.
Self Improvement
This can help you through self awareness to recognize what you are doing to limit emotional growth (habits) and work on those to create a new self.
Relationships
Learning how people think and how to interpret their communication can help your relationships with family, friends, and intimate relationships, and can help strengthen your resolve with close people in your life.
Work
People’s thought the way they think and their actions may vary differently from one person to the next, and once you recognize how you tend to act on the job and think, this can help you choose a job and role.
Emotional Intelligence
The Enneagram focuses on the emotions behind decisions and actions. This builds emotional intelligence, resilience, and self-confidence.
Common Misconceptions About the Enneagram
People make several myths about the Enneagram.
One is that by having a certain personality type this means that you have a limited potential. The Enneagram prefers to put more focus on the possible developments and growth instead of the fixed things.
Another myth is that people perfectly fit into each type description. Many people can be described by a number of types, but typically, only one type is the most important to them.
Some people make the assumption that personality tests describe the person’s potential. The Enneagram provides a vision on the type of person you are which can help you to make better, more informed choices.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is an Enneagram test?
The Enneagram test is a personality test that aims to place someone in a specific personality category based on their motivations, fears, behaviors, and emotional patterns.
Is the Enneagram scientifically proven?
The Enneagram is predominantly used for self-development and coaching, but it will not serve to make a clinical psychological assessment. It is important to keep the Enneagram in the realm of personal insight and not a medical or a diagnostic tool.
Can my Enneagram type change over time?
There is a widespread belief that core personality type will not change throughout the life. Nevertheless, personality type can change and behaviors and emotional responses can change with personal growth, with new experiences, and new circumstances.
What is the most uncommon Enneagram type?
Finding the rarest Enneagram type depends on the population being studied. The answer can change based on the sample. No clear results can be found when looking at the strongest studies.
Are the free Enneagram tests accurate?
The free Enneagram tests found online can be very useful to get a quick, first view of the Enneagram types. If you really want to understand the Enneagram, then the best (and most) accurate way would be to take a longer, more detailed test and then read about the top types you scored.
How much time should I set aside to take an Enneagram test?
Enneagram tests found on the internet can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes to complete.
Conclusion
The Enneagram test is an amazing tool to help you understand the inner workings of your mind. You can learn about your relationships and your strong / weak points. There are a total of nine personality types in the Enneagram, and knowing your specific type helps you understand the way you think and feel.
If personal development is your focus, then always remember that the results of an Enneagram test should not be your final defining characteristic. The Enneagram types help you understand yourself, but they are not meant to box you in.
Embracing the opportunities to improve your weaknesses while understanding your strengths can help you communicate better and make healthier decisions.
