In a world that often highlights conformity, it’s important to recognize and celebrate the beauty that lies in our differences. At “Her Virtuous Purpose,” we believe that every woman possesses a unique personality that contributes to her individuality and purpose. Understanding and appreciating our diverse personality types and core motivations, can empower us to embrace our true selves, find our why, and sustain our thrive. In this blog post, we will discuss the nine Enneagram personality types along with the four core motivations that reflect each type, talk about the importance of appreciating our differences, and invite you to describe your own personality type or the type that resonates to you the most.
- The Power of Personality Types:
Personality types, as defined by renowned psychologist Carl Jung, provide an understanding of the different ways individuals perceive the world and make decisions. These types, such as introverts, extroverts, thinkers, feelers, and more, shape our preferences, strengths, and areas for growth. By recognizing and embracing our unique personality types, we can gain important insights into ourselves and others, promoting empathy, understanding, and personal growth.
- 2. Appreciating Our Differences:
- Embrace Diversity: Just as a rainbow is made up of different colors, our world is full of different personalities. Each personality type brings its own strengths and perspectives to the table. By appreciating the diversity of personalities, we can create a peaceful environment that values and respects everyone’s contributions.
- Nurture Empathy: Understanding that everyone has different ways of processing information and interacting with the world allows us to develop empathy. By putting ourselves in others’ shoes, we can appreciate their unique point of view and experiences, making deeper connections and promoting inclusivity.
- Peaceful Partnership: Recognizing and appreciating our differences enables us to build strong teams and communities. By using the strengths of several personality types, we can create an alliance that leads to innovative solutions, effective communication, and collective growth.
- Defining Your Personality Type:
We invite you to reflect on your own personality type and how it affects your life. Are you energized by social interactions (extrovert) or do you find being alone refreshing (introvert)? Do you make decisions based on logic and analysis (thinker) or rely on your emotions and values (feeler)? Understanding your motivations can guide you through relationships, career choices, and personal development.
Here is a quick intro to the nine Enneagram personality types and the four motivations:
TYPE ONE: The Moral Perfectionist. The moral perfectionist type ones are conscientious, orderly, judgmental, and ethically appropriate. Their core fear is being wrong, bad, evil, inappropriate, unredeemable, or corruptible. Their core desire is having integrity, being good, balanced, accurate, virtuous, and right. Their core weakness is Resentment—Repressing anger that leads to continual frustration and dissatisfaction with themselves, others, and the world for not being perfect and their core longing is to hear “You are good.”
TYPE TWO: The Support Advisor. The support advisors are thoughtful, generous, demonstrative, people-pleasing, and possessive. Their core fear is being rejected and unwanted; being thought worthless, needy, insignificant, dispensable, or unworthy of love. Their core desire is to be appreciated, loved and wanted. Pride is their core weakness. Denying their own needs and emotions, they use their amazing intuition to discover and focus on the feelings and needs of others. They confidently insert their helpful support in hopes that others will say how grateful they are for their thoughtful care. Their core longing: “You are wanted and loved.”
TYPE 3: The Successful Achiever. Type 3s are efficient, accomplished, motivated, driven, and conscious about their image. Their core fear is being exposed as or thought incompetent, inefficient, or worthless; failing to be or appear successful. The core desire of type 3 is having high status and respect, being admired, successful, and valuable. Their core weakness is deceit. They deceive themselves into believing you are only the image they present to others; embellishing the truth by putting on a polished persona for everyone (including themselves) to see and admire. Their core longing is “You are loved and valued for simply being you.”
TYPE 4: The Romantic Individualist. The type 4s are expressive, creative, temperamental, deep, and authentic. Being inadequate and emotionally cut off is the core fear of the type 4s. They also fear being boring, defective, flawed, and insignificant. Their core desire is to be unique, special, and find their authentic self. The core weakness of a type 4 is envy which derives from them feeling that they’re tragically flawed, that something foundational is missing inside them, and others possess qualities they lack. Their core longing is “You are seen and loved for exactly who you are and that you are special and unique.
TYPE 5: The Investigative Thinker. The 5s are intelligent, insightful, perceptive, detached, and isolated. The core fear is being annihilated, invaded, or not existing; being thought incapable or ignorant; having obligations placed upon them or their energy depleted. Their core desire is to be knowledgeable, capable, and competent. Core Weakness Avarice—Feeling they lack inner resources and that too much interaction with others will lead to catastrophic depletion are their core weaknesses in addition to withholding themselves from contact with the world; holding onto their resources and minimizing their needs. Their core longing is to know that their needs are not a problem.
TYPE 6: The Loyal Guardian. The type 6s are faithful, responsible, committed, anxious, and suspicious. The core fear of type 6 is feeling fear itself, being without support, security, or guidance; being blamed, targeted, alone, or physically abandoned. Their core desire is to have security, guidance, and support. Anxiety is their core weakness. They scan the horizon of life and try to predict and prevent negative outcomes (especially worst-case scenarios). They remain in a constant state of apprehension and worry. Their core longing is to know that they are safe and secure.
TYPE 7: The Entertaining Optimist. The type 7s are our playful personality type. They’re also excitable, versatile, scattered, and escapists. Their core fear is being deprived, trapped in emotional pain, limited, or bored. They do not like missing out on the fun. Being happy, fully satisfied, and content is their core desire. The core weakness of the type 7s is gluttony. The feeling of emptiness inside and having an insatiable desire to “fill themselves up” with experiences and stimulation in hopes of feeling completely satisfied and content is the core desire. Their core longing is to be promised, “You will be taken care of.”
TYPE 8: The Protective Challenger. These are the guards of the Enneagram types. The 8s can be intimidating to some because they are confrontational, intense, assertive, self-confident, and big-hearted. These gentle giants’ core fear is being weak, powerless, harmed, controlled, vulnerable, manipulated, and left at the mercy of injustice. Their core desire is to protect themselves and those in their inner circle. The core weakness of type 8 is lust or excess; Constantly desiring intensity, control, and power; pushing themselves deliberately in life and people to get what they want. “You will not be betrayed,” is their core longing.
TYPE 9: The Peaceful Mediator: This type is truly the peaceful type. They are thoughtful, accommodating, reassuring, resigned, and receptive. Their core fear is being in conflict, tension, or discord; feeling shut out and overlooked, and losing connection with others. Their core desire is to have inner stability and peace of mind. The core weakness of type 9 is very sloth-like. They are comfortable remaining in an unrealistic and idealistic world to keep the peace. They do not struggle to remain easy-going and not be disturbed by their anger. They can easily give up their passions, abilities, desires, needs, and worth by acquiescing to others. Knowing that their presence matters is their core longing.
Do you want to know your Enneagram type? Click here to take our free assessment.
(integrate the link for the Enneagram assessment)
At “Her Virtuous Purpose,” we celebrate the beauty of personality types and the diversity they bring to our lives. By embracing our differences, nurturing empathy, and appreciating the unique strengths each personality type offers, we can create a world where every woman feels empowered to embrace her true self, find her why, and sustain her thrive. So, how would you define your personality type? We invite you to embark on a journey of self-discovery and celebrate the beauty that lies within you.