Knowing your Enneagram 3
In our Friday Crew, we learned a little something about Enneagram 3s.
The 3 is the person who will go-go-go-go-go-gooooo until it’s done. And it’s never done. So they’re always going.
They’re the ones who are so performance- and achievement-based you wonder if their brains and bodies ever truly rest.
Enneagram 3s.
The ones who teach us that efficient productivity is useful.
The ones who remind us that wanting to do our best can be a good, healthy thing.
The ones who teach us how to behave at a social gathering.
The ones who have to work the hardest to have a healthy work-life balance.
The one who says, "Game on," and means it in a way you won’t understand until you’re knee-deep in the game.
The Enneagram 3 has spent her life trying to be and appear as competent and respectable as she can be. Great leaders who are comfortable making decisions and being in the spotlight, they also have a tendency of conflating their inherent value with how successful others see them. Without some good heart work, that doesn’t change.
The Enneagram 3 is smack-dab in the middle of in the Heart Triad.
These folks FEEL before they think or do, but what’s unique about the Enneagram 3 is they’re feelings-repressed.
These folks struggle with deceit because they have spent their lives figuring out how to be exactly what others need them to be, exactly when they need to be it. So even though they’re in the heart triad and work from their feelings, those feelings have been shoved down and out for so long, 3s don’t access them right away.
For example:
Imagine you were running a project that would raise a lot money for sick children in your community. Imagine you set up a simple way for everyone to give, and you ended up raising 2 million dollars. You’d be ecstatic! Of course you would be; your idea worked, you’re helping a lot of people, etc. It’s the motivation of competency and success that pleases the 3 first, and the weight of the project does not overwhelm; it entices and motivates. Then, when they’re by themselves - or in front of their people if they’re healthy - they’ll let the emotions of it all just leak right out of their eyes.
See the Heart Triad there? They have huge feelings, but since it’s not socially acceptable to cry out loud, they won’t.
Their public self shifts with the needs of the moment, which to the socially awkward among us is really a super power…
It’s just that they end up not really knowing who they are because they’ve spent so much time avoiding shame in order to gain others’ praise & acceptance.
Why do they do that?
Motivations:
Core Fear: Being or being perceived as incompetent in any area
Core Desire: To be admired, respected, successful, and loved
Core weakness: deceit — getting stuck in the trap of believing they actually are the puffed-up version they show the masses.
Core longing: "You are inherently valued and loved."
It all comes back to being valuable & competent. Enneagram 3s are on a treadmill that never stops. They like it when their people and their partners can jump on the treadmill and keep pace with them, but they also don’t mind being with someone who’ll let them fly as they are. Threes will strive for perfection over progress every time. An Enneagram 1 likes and wants to be the best, but that’s because they want to be good. Threes like to be the best because it’s the best. In performance, achievement, in whatever they’ve marked as SUCCESS - reaching that bar, raising it, then reaching it, then raising it, then rinse-wash-repeat.
Every Enneagram type has two wings, which are the adjacent numbers. For the 3, that’s the 2 and the 4.
Wings act like personality crutches; when we’re leaning out of our dominant type, we lean into one of two wings - usually one more strongly than the other, but once in a great while we have a steady equilibrium of leaning on both wings an equal amount. They add to the flavor of our personality, like salt & pepper or sugar & spice, depending on how we use it.
3w2 - 3 with a 2 wing - is nicknamed The Star. Since they have a strong pull for achievement & helping, the two traits work together well to create a warm, sociable, charming, adaptable human. (It doesn’t hurt that helping others is a socially desirable and praised trait).
3w4 - 3 with a 4 wing - is nicknamed The Professional. Quieter, more inward/introspective, more afraid of failing since the 4 trends toward feeling defective; mixed with wanting to feel competent, this combo can make a person feel a stronger need for others to recognize their accomplishments.
Side bar: The difference between a 3w2 and a 2w3 is the dominant type, because the dominant type determines the main motivation. The 3w2 predominantly pursues performance & praise; the 2w3 predominantly pursues acceptance. So having the same #s in a wing combo (1w2 & 2w1 or 3w2 & 2w3, and so on), does not mean the personalities are expressed in the same way.
Every Enneagram type has a stress arrow & a security arrow; where we go when we’re our messy selves & where we go when we’re our comfortable (sometimes lazy) selves.
In average to heavy stress, 3s go to average-to-unhealthy traits of the Enneagram 9: being more passive, disengaged, disassociating, stubbornly resist needing help or even hearing that they need help.
In blind-spot security (the lazy, I’ve-always-been-this-way self), 3s go to average-to-unhealthy traits of the Enneagram 6: Expressing anxieties more freely, react strongly when blamed for or accused of something, more suspicious.
The good news is — These stress & security arrows tell us when we’re not living as our best selves.
In growth, 3s go to average-to-healthy traits of the Enneagram 6: Less competitive & more cooperative, more loyal and focused on the well-being of others instead of their own success.
In integration, 3s go to average-to-healthy traits of the Enneagram 9: accessing the peaceable side, not needing to hustle or achieve, excelling out of joy rather than out of fear of defeat or failure, seeking community.
Strengths: Energetic, not easily overwhelmed, flexible, sociable, optimistic, hardworking, competent, efficient
Struggles: workaholic tendencies, conceited tendencies, can seem cold-hearted due to direct communication, easily shame themselves with the trap of comparison.
The 3 can sound like a deceitful, conceited selfish know-it-all, when really, it’s like they’ve always worn a shape-shifting body suit their whole lives. They’ve moved and bent as needed so they could blend in with their surroundings and appear collected & competent. They have trained their brains to believe that it’s the only way to be accepted and loved.
If we, their loved ones, could look past that shape-shifting body suit and let those 3s know how loved and valued they are simply for being human, we might have a few projects left hanging in the balance, but oh what a wonderful gift it would be to their heart.
Does this sound like you? Or does it sound like someone you know?
Get the Typing Guide right here or in the form below. Figuring out your Enneagram number is a great way to start figuring out why you say, do & think the way you do. It’s a great way to learn that you’re not weird, you’re just you. And we need you.
Still looking for more? Shoot me an email & we can talk about coaching!