From providing entertainment to being used as a leadership tool, the Enneagram is a personality test that reveals a person’s motives, fears, and joys. 

It is broken into nine different “personalities” which are represented by the numbers 1 through 9, each with its own motives, biggest fears, stressors, struggles and how they respond to different situations. 

English teacher Amber Sims uses the enneagram regularly in both her personal and professional lives.

“It helps you understand the people around you and why they act the way they do,” Sims said. “It is a tool for entertaining yourself, but also the people you are around.”

Taking the test requires self awareness and is taken best when someone has an open mind. Sims uses this test at the beginning of the year with her senior students.

“It helps students to get to know themselves,” Sims said. “[It] also is a quick and easy way for me to get to know them [my students] and how to make my interactions with them effective.”

Not only is the it an accurate and efficient way to better understand the way people think and approach situations, but it also provides the opportunity for people to better understand themselves. 

“I like to know my own self-awareness because it helps me know, sometimes my first instinct isn’t necessarily my healthiest,” Sims said. 

Oftentimes understanding what you are feeling and why you are feeling it allows a person to grow and best respond to the situation at hand. 

Check back each week for a highlight on each number as we cover their main traits, biggest fears, and desires.

A great place to learn more about the Enneagram, and where we got most of our information, is “https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions”.