Back when I first graduated with my life coaching certification, I had one thing on my mind. I wanted to continue the ministry I had while working for the church and help women grow and transform. To be honest, I thought I could hang out my life coach shingle and women would come running. What I didn’t realize about starting a coaching business was that transformation was a really big word and the secret sauce to coaching is to find a specialty or as some would call it a niche to narrow your focus and help clients envision what type of transformation they could expect. The other thing I didn’t realize? Most coaches focused on an assessment or two to facilitate life change.

Enter the Enneagram…

About 2 years in, I hadn’t settled on an assessment that reflected my coaching philosophy and the transformation that I was believing God would bring in my clients. As I was scrolling through Instagram one day, I came across the Enneagram. If you’ve never heard about the Enneagram and are wondering what it is, I’ve got you covered. It’s a personality typing system much like the DISC, Meyers Briggs (the one with the 4 letters like INFP), or Strengthfinders. The way the Enneagram differs from all those is that it’s based on your CORE MOTIVATION or why you do what you do. There are 9 types for the Enneagram or 9 different ways of showing up in the world. I like to call the CORE MOTIVATIONS life strategies because they reflect how each type sees the world and what they need to do to gain love, significance or achievement. No type is better than the other and each person has only one dominant Enneagram type (despite the fact that they can resonate with the behaviors of some of the other 9 types). Here’s why I liked it…once you identify your main or dominant type, it offers a unique pathway to growth depending on your type. No one size fits all growth plans. It enabled me to coach my clients and develop growth plans that were unique to their own life strategies.

True confession? My initial group coaching sessions surrounding the Enneagram did not go as planned. There were a lot of questions and very little clarity. But all the confusion that resulted with my clients propelled me to learn from leaders in the industry and I’m thankful for this tool that helps all of us reconnect with who we are and who God made us to be. So if you’re ready for 4 ways that the Enneagram can help us grow (when used properly), then let’s dig in.

REconnect with you

As I connect and get to know women like you and me, women who are navigating mid-life — I hear one common theme. I’ve lost sight of who I am anymore. Whether you’ve raised your kids and are a new empty nester or are navigating a job change or even retirement, there’s one question many of us have in common. “How did I end up here?” and “What do I do next?”. If you’ve been asking yourself questions like these, you are not alone. Somewhere in life, we refocused on family or the job we already had. Maybe some of us longed for a job we loved and settled for a job we were good at. I don’t know about you, but these are questions I continue to ask and answer so much that I wonder if God is hitting his hand to his forehead and exclaiming, “Not again!”

When I discovered the Enneagram and even more importantly, my dominant type — I began to slow life down and learn more about me. I learned about what drove me and what I was really looking for in life. It helped me understand why I was good at certain things like strategizing and getting things done quickly and why I hated certain things like training for a new job (do not even get me started). But mostly, it created a space for me to ask the questions I had never asked and answered like who was I really, what did I really want, and how had God uniquely wired me to live out His purposes on mission.

The thing about the Enneagram is that it’s not as easy as taking a test and finding your number to talk about at parties. There’s deep work involved as you observe yourself, your repeated patterns of behavior, and all the things you try to hide from others through your core motivations. But the work is worth it and in the process we can get to know ourselves like we never have before.

Everything belongs

Father Richard Rohr has written about the Enneagram and spiritual direction in his book The Enneagram. The one thing he says about cultivating self-awareness is that “Everything Belongs.” As an Enneagram type 3, I spend alot of time trying to look like I have everything together. Working hard. Working fast. Choosing to work independently. Talking in 3 points. But behind all that, there’s a lot that the average person does not see like my need to please others and be admired, the need to hide my insecurities, and the 10 outfits I try on to make sure I look put together for that next networking event. No matter what Enneagram type you may be, we all have things we prefer not to be vulnerable about. But what I learned by being curious about the Enneagram and finding my type was exactly as Richard Rohr says…it all belongs. The good, the bad and the ugly. The things you are proud to show other and the things you try to hide so that no one can see.

The more I dig into learning about myself, the more I’m finding that all my personality traits and quirks are there for a reason. The more I dig in, the more I find that I’m embracing my strengths and my weaknesses. The more I dig in, the more I’m discovering that I actually love the way God made me and I’m working on (not quite there yet) that what others think of me does not compare to what God thinks of me and how I process that for my own faith growth.

Developing compassion

If you asked my closest friends on a scale of 1-10 how compassionate I am — well, let’s just say I wouldn’t score very high. The older I get, the more direct I am which doesn’t score many points on the compassion scale. But…

The Enneagram has helped me through the childhood message of each type. You see, our core motivation is formed through the childhood message each of us heard and deduced from how life was played out. To be honest, when I teach about the childhood message two things happen. First, a light bulb usually goes off about your own type. You start to understand why you do what you do and where that came from. You can start healing from the messages that weren’t always true and the assumptions you made from your childhood. The second thing that happens? We start to see the people in our lives as humans who have their own preconceived lens through which they see the world. The childhood messages are at the same time enlightening and sobering.

One thing I’ve noticed in my own life and the lives of others is that teaching about the childhood messages creates a compassion for others. We start to understand a little more why our spouse, best friend, or co-worker is the way they are. We start to see underneath all the behaviors and finally understand that a search for relevance and significance is driving those repeated behaviors. It helps us see our most important people as people on the journey to outgrowing those things that get in their own way. And in the end, we start to understand our differences. Why some move and think quickly and others ponder decisions. Why some make lists and some don’t. Why some are natural connectors with others and some take time to warm up. It all comes down to why you do what you do and increasing our compassion leads to better relationships.

our natural strengths

When I teach about the Enneagram, I like to teach it from a place of strengths. Each type has natural strengths that come with their CORE MOTIVATION. For instance, type 1s are naturally good at establishing processes and paying attention to detail, while type 9s are naturally good at seeing all sides of an argument and make natural mediators. With those natural strengths comes an unconscious ability to overdo those strength where they become our liabilities. Each Enneagram type has unique strengths and times when these strengths can be overdone to the point that they get in our way. In his book The Enneagram for Spiritual Formation, AJ Sherrill talks about growth practices for each type. He refers to the natural ways we show up as our downstream practices. They come easy to us. We don’t have to try so hard. On the flip side, when our strengths get overdone and turn into potential weakness — there are things that don’t come to us easily. AJ refers to these as upstream practices. We have to work at these a little.

So where does understanding our strengths and how we overdo them get us? It can help us know what we’re good at. It can help us know what to say yes to and no to because certain things come naturally. It can help us know what to say yes to. And when we overdo those strengths — we can understand when we need to slow down. We can understand that too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing. We can understand that addressing when our strengths are overdone is a pathway to growing personally, spiritually, and relationally.

The more I learn about the Enneagram, the more I learn about myself. The Enneagram is dynamic and so much more than a personality test. There is movement within the Enneagram so that anyone who applies it to their life can see real wholehearted transformation as they learn to leverage their strengths, cultivate self-awareness, and identify the barriers to becoming the person that God wants them to be. If you’re ready to learn more, I’d love to help. I’m hosting a Enneagram Intro workshop on Tuesday January 28th at 7 pm for my local Minnesota friends so we can learn about the Enneagram together. Hoping to see you there!