Understanding oneself as an EFT practitioner business owner is a key part of success. The Enneagram can be an invaluable tool in this journey. The Enneagram is an ancient system of personality typing that divides people into nine distinct types based on a combination of fears, motivations, and desires. It provides valuable insights into our strengths, weaknesses, and habitual behaviors, allowing us to make wiser decisions and strengthen our relationship with ourselves and others.
The Enneagram is particularly helpful to us as solo business owners, as it provides a deep understanding of our natural tendencies and how they can be used to our advantage. By understanding our type, we can leverage our inherent strengths and weaknesses to develop better habits and find greater success. For example, if you are an Enneagram Type 7 – the busy, variety-seeking type – you naturally have a strong desire for novelty, adventure, and exploration. You can use this to your advantage by seeking out new opportunities, taking risks, and pushing yourself to explore new frontiers in your business.
At the same time, the Enneagram can help us to be aware of our own limitations. Our type can help us identify when we are trying to force ourselves down a path that is at odds with our personality. This can be especially useful when it comes to working with others. By understanding our type and the types of those around us, we can better recognize how to interact with and motivate others. We can better navigate potential conflicts and reach successful outcomes. We can also recognize how our type affects our decision-making and how to be more mindful and aware of our thoughts and actions.
Here are the common challenges for each of the types:
Type One: Feeling overwhelmed by the ever-growing to-do list, struggling to delegate tasks, and getting too caught up in details.
Type Two: Feeling unappreciated and taken for granted, wanting to please everyone and be seen as helpful, and becoming easily frustrated by your own expectations.
Type Three: Feeling demeaned by ordinary (and often necessary) tasks that do not utilize their talents, envious of the success of others, and delaying action by overthinking.
Type Four: Struggling to stay motivated in the face of adversity and being overly sensitive to criticism.
Type Five: Feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work they need to do, feeling disconnected from others who may be assisting you such as a bookkeeper, and getting too caught up in analysis paralysis.
Type Six: Feeling anxious and worrying too much, becoming too dependent on others, and overthinking every decision.
Type Seven: Becoming over reliant on external motivation, struggling to focus on one task at a time, and getting too caught up in planning and not enough in execution.
Type Eight: Becoming too aggressive and dominating, feeling the need to be in control and not taking no for an answer, and struggling to respect the opinion of others.
Type Nine: Becoming too passive and indecisive, avoiding confrontation and conflict, and feeling disconnected from their own emotions.
A Case Study Combining EFT and the Enneagram
Susan joined our marketing and business program feeling completely drained of energy for her business. Once she took the Enneagram test she identified herself as a Type 1 which tend to have perfectionist tendencies. During our sessions she found that her need to get everything right had prevented her from publishing her website which had been sitting as a draft for two years. A website is a living space that is meant to be tweaked, changed, altered and refined year after year, and one shouldn’t think of it as a perfect static business card. In her tapping swap sessions she targeted some of the earlier core events that had created the limiting belief that,”If it’s not perfect, you suffer major consequences” Within a few sessions she was able to publish her site and start to attract paying clients.
Finally, the Enneagram gives us a greater appreciation of ourselves and of those around us. By recognizing and understanding our type, we can learn to accept ourselves for who we are and to be more patient and compassionate with ourselves and others. We can also gain a greater appreciation for the differences between us and use them to our advantage. The Enneagram, especially when combined with Tapping, gives us valuable insights into our strengths and weaknesses, and helps us deal with those parts of us that prevent us from building thriving businesses that serve our communities.
Alina Frank is an Accredited Certified EFT Master Trainer of Trainers.
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