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Originally Posted On: https://enneagramgrowthjourneys.com/2024/03/01/enneagram-traps/
The Enneagram growth model is enjoying increasing popularity as a way to explore and understand our personalities. If you have no idea what the Enneagram is, you can read an introduction to the Enneagram here. In a nutshell, the Enneagram is a personal development map based on archetypes of personalities. It serves as a valuable tool for self-exploration and raising your emotional intelligence.
Discovering your Enneagram type can be the start of a powerful growth journey, but many people stop at that point. They may enjoy reading about their types, appreciate their positive traits and make peace with the negative ones. However, that’s not what the Enneagram was developed for. Rather than accepting our ego-driven personality patterns, it invites us to transcend them by changing how we think, feel and act. It’s a fascinating journey that empowers us to grow towards a more evolved version of ourselves. This makes us better equipped to create and enjoy the life we want.
Our personality can be a prison
Have you ever heard people saying things like:
“That’s just how I am.”
“I can’t help feeling this way.”
“That’s just my sense of humour.”
When we talk about ourselves in this way, it sounds as if our personalities were fixed. It implies that we can’t help but be the person we are or, more accurately, we think we are. We may even use this mindset as an excuse for our behaviours and expect others to put up with them.
I have a friend who has a very cynical kind of humour that can be hurtful and kill the flow of a conversation. When I called out the impact his behaviour had on other people, he shrugged and told me that this was just his sense of humour. He failed to see how destructive his cynicism was and how it got in the way of having deeper connections. Nor was he interested in changing his behaviour to improve his relationships.
In the Enneagram world, we believe that people have options and can change. What we often defend as our identity is just a collection of traits that we created in our childhood as a defence mechanism. Those traits became habits and formed our adult personality. Whilst it can be hard to change the core of our personality, there are many aspects of it that we can change. For example, you may be a fearful Enneagram Type 6, and the fear may remain part of your life, but you can learn to dance with it and develop more trust in yourself and other people.
If we don’t acknowledge our ability to change aspects of our personality, our growth is limited. We apply the same way of thinking, feeling and behaving to each situation. In this respect we are not much better than machines or animals who replay the same reactivity when triggered by external events. When we are in this state, our personality has become a prison—but it doesn’t have to be.
How our personality develops
To understand what our personality really is, let’s have a look at how it is created.
As children, we are entirely dependent on adults for our survival. That’s a tough place to be in. All children have to navigate the frustration of not having their needs met, discovering that bad things can happen and that the people around them don’t always mirror their emotions. This can be confusing and scary. Subconsciously, we then create our own survival strategy to help us manage these experiences and ultimately feel loved and safe.
When things don’t go the way they want, the child draws the conclusion that it’s not enough to be just who they are. We start to regulate ourselves to become the person we think we have to be to have our needs met. This then becomes a life strategy that we carry into adulthood. Examples of those strategies are:
- I need to be good to avoid criticism
- I need to be nice so that people like me
- I need to be strong to defend myself against injustice
- I need to subordinate my needs to maintain peace and harmony
As we grow up we also learn other skills to get through life, but this original survival strategy from our childhood remains at the core of our personality. We call this our Enneagram Type. The more we are stressed, the more likely it is that we default to this pattern as a coping mechanism. We tend to play it out over and over without even knowing that we do it or why
The Enneagram helps us wake up and disrupt this automated reactivity. It tells us what our patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours are, and then points to the most relevant blind spots and development areas for our Enneagram type and subtype. This is the path that leads us out of the prison of our personality.
It can be difficult to manage, let alone transcend, our defence mechanisms because our ego is attached to them. It perceives them as parts of its identity and the only way to survive. Whilst these patterns work in certain ways and have got us to where we are in life, they come with blind spots and shadows that hold us back from enjoying life and realising our full potential. In a way, subconsciously we are always on the defence because evolution has optimised us for survival, not happiness. If we want to be happy, we need to be mindful of the traps into which our personality may lead us in its relentless concern for survival.
The Enneagram traps
In this article, I want to focus on just one issue for each Enneagram type, which I call the Enneagram traps. Each of the nine types is driven by a motivation, which is designed to meet a core need that we decided to focus on in our childhood. This need becomes the main driver for how we think, feel and act.
The way we go about meeting this need does not always work, though. Very often, the subconscious life strategies of the nine Enneagram types lead us to the opposite of what we are trying to achieve. When we feel stressed, we tend to default to our main ego defence strategy, although it may have been that exact strategy that got us in trouble in the first place. This can create an unproductive cycle or even make our situation worse. That’s what makes it a trap.
We need to go against the pattern to get out of it. This requires self-awareness, self-observation and personal leadership.
Let’s look at those traps for each of the nine types.
The trap of Type 1: The Strict Perfectionist
Type 1s are driven by a desire to do what’s right. Behind this motivation is a deep frustration that things are not as they should be, whether that’s themselves, other people or their environment. Doing what’s right also helps Type 1s avoid what they fear the most: to be criticised.
In their desire to put things right, Type 1s apply high standards. They constantly try to regulate themselves, others and their environment to meet a standard of perfection. Yet perfection is impossible, and that’s the trap of the Type 1. They play a game they can never win.
Although Type 1s can be excellent at creating quality results in everything they touch, they rarely enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Often, they downplay their success by telling themselves that it could have been better, or they move their attention to the next thing that needs to be corrected. They experience constant frustration that nothing is as it should be, including themselves. Their strive for perfection creates a life experience which is far from “perfect”.
Part of an Enneagram growth journey for a Type 1 is to readjust their standards of perfection, learn to surrender rather than control and appreciate the beauty of imperfection.
The trap of Type 2: The Considerate Helper
Type 2s yearn to be liked and appreciated. Whilst we all want this, it plays a more central theme in the lives of Type 2s. Considerate Helpers decided in their childhood that being liked was the best way to get through life. If people appreciate you, then surely they will meet your needs. To pursue this life strategy, Type 2s develop various skills to gain people’s affection. They focus on what other people want or need so that they can respond to this, either by helping or simply being nice and charming.
This focus on other people leads Type 2s to neglect their own needs and wants. Often they don’t even know what they want in life. They find it difficult to think about themselves without referencing other people. Even if Type 2s do know what they want, they can be too proud to communicate their needs directly. This does not always end well for Type 2s because they can easily burn out when expending too much energy in the service of others. And when other people don’t appreciate them for their efforts or don’t give them anything back, a Type 2 can become resentful towards the people they initially want to help. They are caught in the Type 2 trap.
A growth journey for Type 2s involves acknowledging that the best way to ensure their needs are met is to be clear about what those needs are and then asserting them directly, mirroring the fashion in which Type 8s do this. This could be asking people for help directly rather than trying to get their attention indirectly by making people like them. They will also benefit from communicating exactly how they would like to be appreciated, as this may not always be clear to people around the Type 2.
The trap of Enneagram Type 3: The Competitive Achiever
Type 3s are driven by a motivation to maintain an image of success. It comes from a feeling of not being valuable enough and a desire to compensate for this by becoming what people regard as successful. Type 3s are typically good at knowing what they want and willing to make the sacrifices required to hit their goals. They move to action quickly and find it easy to change their behaviours and image as needed to get what they want.
However, the more they shapeshift to match the expectations of others, the further they move away from loving themselves for who they really are. Once they have arrived at the desired position of success, people have learned to value the artificial image they created, rather than their authentic self. By putting on the mask of success, Type 3s deprive themself of the opportunity to be liked for who they really are. They then need to maintain that image to avoid losing other people’s attention. Eventually, they may even delude themselves by believing that they are indeed the same as the image they created. They are caught in the Type 3 trap.
Part of an Enneagram growth journey for Type 3s entails stopping the game of shapeshifting in their chase for success, and learning to love themselves unconditionally. They will also benefit from opening up to other people, just a few trusted ones initially, and allowing them to see their authentic selves behind the façade of success. This will create opportunities for more intimate relationships and being loved for who they really are.
The trap of Enneagram Type 4: The Intensive Creative
Type 4s want to be seen. They have this in common with Types 2 and 3, but go about it differently. They try to gain attention by being authentic, individual or special. Ultimately, this is about a desire to be loved, but this is where the trap starts: the more we try to be special, the more we remove ourselves from others.
I once met somebody who had his face full of extreme piercings. He shared that he was depressed because of the way that people looked at him in public. The piercings were an expression of his desire to stand out, but they removed him from something else that was also important to him: being loved and connected.
Enneagram Type 4s experience a constant push and pull, wanting to be a part of groups or relationships, but then pulling back because they feel they don’t belong; and as much as they want to be seen, they are also scared to be seen with all their imperfections. This game of back and forward is part of a never-ending search to find something that Type 4s perceive as missing. Yet, as soon as they get hold of what they thought they wanted, they often devalue it as lacking after all. Their attention moves on to the next object of their desire. By craving what they don’t have and devaluing what they do have, they are stuck in the Type 4 trap.
Part of a growth journey for an Enneagram Type 4 is to move their attention from what’s missing to all the beautiful things they already have. They would do well to appreciate that, at one level, we are all the same and connected. At the same time, we are also uniquely different and special without needing to try to prove it.
The trap of Enneagram Type 5: The Quiet Specialist
Type 5s place a high focus on conserving their resources, whether that’s energy, time or space. They feel most comfortable in their introverted bubble, where they can be at peace to pursue what they most enjoy: gathering information and making sense of the world.
Quiet Specialists tend to be a bit stingy with the attention they give to other people and how much they open their hearts to them. Whilst they can and do enjoy connections with other people, they experience them as depleting their energy. This drives them to withdraw so that they can recharge after being in contact with others.
Part of the Type 5 trap is that their fear of being depleted by connections with other people is in itself depleting. It’s their own mind chatter and the effort of defending the gates to their inner castle that drains their energy. By withdrawing too much into their Type 5 bubble, they cut themselves off from nourishing support and access to resources they could receive from other people. They may also miss that other people have solutions and information for some of the things they are trying to figure out by themselves.
An Enneagram growth journey for a Type 5 would entail, amongst other things, opening up more to other people, processing and expressing emotions, and staying in contact for a little bit longer.
The trap of Enneagram Type 6: The Loyal Sceptic
Type 6s are driven by a desire to ensure that they are safe. They tend to screen their environment for potential risks and threats so that they can anticipate and avoid them. Type 6s can’t help looking for threats, and the more they look the more they find. This can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. It also creates more perceived evidence confirming that they need to be on guard.
The trap is that Type 6s never really do feel safe, although all their efforts are focused on safety. As soon as one issue is resolved, their attention moves on to the next risk. Their ego tries to protect them by ensuring that they always doubt and remain on alert. It doesn’t want them to feel safe or be certain about anything, as this could make them let their guard down and expose them to risks.
Part of an Enneagram Type 6 growth journey is to learn to live with fear and risks rather than trying to avoid them. Ultimately, living comes with risks. Complete safety is impossible. We do better in life if we learn to dance with our fears rather than conquer them. This requires Type 6s to practise courage and step into action, even if they have not yet considered all eventualities and there remain risks.
The trap of Enneagram Type 7: The Enthusiastic Visionary
Type 7s normally like their Enneagram type. They enjoy hearing that they are fun-loving and adventurous, always looking for new opportunities. What they don’t always realise is that their focus on new ideas and possibilities is escapism. It is a life strategy they started to cultivate as a child to avoid dealing with negative experiences. At one point in their childhood, a Type 7 would have subconsciously decided that the best way to deal with negative or boring things in their life was simply not to deal with them at all. They started distracting themselves by focusing their attention on other things; for example, fun activities, work, projects or socialising, to name just a few.
The trap is that you cannot outrun problems or negative feelings. We may be able to brush them under the carpet for a short period, but they will build up and eventually hit back.
Type 7s will argue that they simply desire to live to the full, but if we try to grab every opportunity in our fear of missing out, we might actually be left with very little. The constant focus on the future can lead to missing out on life in the present. And if you want to keep all of your doors in life open, you may actually not really go through any of them, or not engage deeply with anything at all.
The Type 7 trap reminds me of the TV game show The Crystal Maze. In this show candidates were put in a translucent dome structure with the task of catching golden paper snippets falling from the ceiling. To make things difficult, ventilation in the dome made the paper snippets swirl around in random directions. Contestants had to capture as many golden snippets as possible. A good strategy in this game was to focus on one golden snippet at a time and follow its path through the air until you capture it. If your attention constantly moved from one snippet to another, you wouldn’t actually capture any of them.
If a Type 7 wants to break out of the prison of their personality, they need to stop running and face the issues they have been trying to avoid. They will benefit from a paradigm shift that acknowledges that aiming for more can leave them with less.
The trap of Type 8: The Active Controller
Type 8s believe that they must be strong and in control to get through life. They assert their strength to protect themselves and others from injustice. Behind this pattern is a fear that others might take advantage of them if they could see their vulnerabilities. For this reason, Type 8s unconsciously take a pre-emptive defence stance in life. They make themselves appear bigger than they are and apply excessive energy to everything they do.
The first part of the trap of the Type 8 pattern lies in their over-assertive communication pattern that others can easily perceive as intimidating or hostile. If you always turn up in full battle gear, you are likely to create more battles than necessary. Indeed, Type 8s often tell me about a long history of conflicts in their lives. There is a common narrative where the Type 8 perceives themselves as the only one who understands what needs to be done and they are frustrated that others don’t get it. Whilst they always have good intentions, their strong energy can turn them into a bull in a china shop. They may be ignorant of the damage they cause in situations where they believe they are simply direct and say what needs to be said.
The second part of the Type 8 trap is their denial of vulnerability. We all have vulnerabilities, and if we don’t acknowledge them they may become our Achilles’ heel. Achilles is a hero in Greek mythology who was invulnerable except for a spot on one of his heels. He failed to protect this body part and died from an arrow piercing it.
A modern-day example is that of Antonio Horta-Osorio, although I don’t know whether he is a Type 8. He was the CEO of Lloyd’s Bank in the UK, an extremely hard worker who failed to look after his own physical needs. His workaholic tendencies peaked when he did not sleep for five days. He eventually suffered from an insomnia-induced physical collapse and had to recover at the Priory Clinic on a sleep recovery program. These examples illustrate how the Type 8 pattern of trying to deny our vulnerability can make us even more vulnerable.
I love it when I see Type 8s owning their soft and vulnerable core behind the external battle gear. When they do, they find that it takes genuine strength to do so. This strength is quite different from the superficial strength they show the world when they try to hide their vulnerability. When Type 8s are confident enough to share this softer side of them, they will enjoy deeper and more fulfilling relationships.
The trap of Type 9: The Adaptive Peacemaker
Type 9s are driven by a desire to maintain peace and harmony in their environment. Subconsciously, they yearn to re-create the perfect union and comfort we all once experienced when we were one with our mothers. One of their core fears is to be in conflict with other people, as they regard this as a threat to peace and harmony. This makes Type 9s avoid conflicts and refrain from speaking up about their own wants, needs and opinions. In fact, they often don’t even know what they want. Like Type 2s, they focus too much on other people.
The Type 9 trap is that this strategy does not help create genuine peace and harmony. Conflicts cannot be resolved by avoiding them. If we don’t speak up about the things that don’t work for us, the issues do not go away; and the more we subordinate our needs to those of other people, the more conflicts we create. Underneath the superficial perception of harmony, resentment builds up. The only way to achieve genuine peace and comfort is to embrace the momentary discomfort of engaging in difficult conversations. This allows issues to be resolved rather than being swept under the carpet. Type 9s will benefit from appreciating the positive effects of healthy conflicts and how they can create deeper and more harmonious relationships in the long term, both at home and work.
What’s your Enneagram trap?
You may well resonate with several or even all of the Enneagram traps that I described in this article. I do too. Whilst my dominant type is Type 4, I also very much resonate with the traps of Types 1, 5 and 9. Yet, for all of us, there is one that trumps all others. That trap is linked to our main life strategy and we tend to overuse it. Establishing your dominant Enneagram type will help you identify what your main Enneagram trap is. It will also point you to the most powerful growth opportunity based on your type and subtype.
There are three main ways to find your Enneagram type, which you can read about here.
Why bother?
If all of this sounds like too much work, you may wonder why you should bother. Indeed, embarking on an Enneagram growth journey may not appeal to everybody. If you are happy and fulfilled with yourself and your life, then good for you! But if there are areas in your life you want to improve, or you simply wish to understand yourself and others better, the Enneagram will serve you well.
Taking an Enneagram test marks the beginning of an exciting journey of self-discovery and personal growth. Equipped with a deeper understanding of your type, you have the power to unlock your true potential and navigate life with greater clarity and purpose.
If we don’t do growth work, whether with the Enneagram or other approaches, we may not fully realise our potential. We remain asleep to who we are and imprisoned by replaying the same ego-driven defence strategies over and over, thus remaining stuck in the prison of our personality. The Enneagram offers an opportunity to wake up from this state and learn new, more resourceful ways of living.
