At my university last year, I took a personality test for an organization. The first test that probably pops to your mind is Meyers Briggs—however, this one is a bit different.

If you want to know more about exactly what the Enneagram is and where it came from check out this link here!

For everyone who has taken this (I’m talking to you St. Ed’s students), you’ll know how much this personality test can change the way you view yourself. After taking the Enneagram, I learned that I was a two, the type that is known as “the helper”. Reading more and more about my type was like opening a locked chest within myself that was always there. I started to understand that some of the parts of myself that annoyed me were just part of how my personality was designed.

I also learned more about my type when I’m healthy and when I’m stressed. It helped me pinpoint the parts I loved about myself and how to make them soar. Conversely, it also helped see how I am at my worst and how to control it.

Another fascinating part about doing this assessment with my then-organization and my now RA staff is meeting people who have the same type as you. It was so relieving to meet other people who thought similarly to me.

However, perhaps the greatest lesson I learned from the Enneagram was knowing about the other eight types. I learned about the tendencies I have in other types as well. It was so fascinating to learn about my coworkers and friends who were ones, and suddenly their perfectionist ways and close attention to deadlines made sense. For my friends who are sevens, your cravings for adventure is now so clear. When I work with those who are eights, I now understand to take their direct and blunt criticism as their way of communicating effectively, even though maybe my way as a two is bit more sugarcoated.

Just like any personality assessment, it’s vital to not let that one result define you. You don’t have to solely be one type or another, since we are ever changing. However, the Enneagram doesn’t make me feel trapped in my type. The Enneagram incorporates “wings”, which is the number before and after yours. It showed me that while I am a helping, compassionate and people oriented two. My wing leans toward a one because it's a reflection of how I work; never missing a deadline, being organized and paying close attention to detail.

Taking this assessment alongside a team has helped the harmony within the group in an almost indescribable way. We all understand how to approach different people while keeping their number in mind. I’m lucky enough to be in a group where pretty much every type is represented. My team has the people skills brought by twos (whoop whoop), the attentiveness of ones, the creativity of fours, the careful eye of the 6s, and so on.

I’m lucky enough to have been exposed to this assessment so early in my college career, and I know that it is a tool that I will use when I lead my own team one day.

The Enneagram has surely changed the way I work—whether it be in school/work or how I operate in my day to day life.