Enneagram Type 3s Explained - A Complete Guide 

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Yessss🙌🏾🙌🏾

Thank you so much 🙏 They’ve taken a lot of time & energy for sure!

Where would I find this?

@@xiannegray4171 it is on steam for $20. Netflix has it on mobile too.

Thanks so much for sharing, Sarah. Mothers are certainly a major influence on 3s (generally speaking) and I can relate to experience of a coping through work. Best wishes on your continued journey of healing & self-awareness!

Yikes. Same here. After the loss of my mother all I did to compensate was try to work towards the top of anything that I was involved in. No matter the cost.

I thought I was 7w8 at first. Now I am 3w2.

So glad you found it helpful! Many 3s have a really hard time with the enneagram because it trudges up so much shame, so bravo for diving into it! I hope it is indeed therapeutic :)

Interesting. And what’s your enneagram type?

@@YouveGotaType I think 1w9

@@sumdude1233 Gotchya, it would make sense that those image-conscious traits would stand out to you as someone more concerned with doing the right thing vs. doing what receives praise. With that said, I always urge people to focus on their own enneagram type before analyzing other's (especially their flaws/ego issues).

I’d say it all checks out. Now to make sure your ego isn’t attached to climbing ladders, but rather doing what you truly love even if no one was watching ;)

So glad it resonated with ya, albeit in an uncomfortable way ;)

Glad it resonated and was (hopefully) helpful!

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Thanks so much! Glad it felt accurate :)

So glad to hear it!

So glad to hear you're loving the videos! And yup, I definitely move fast ;)

So glad to hear it!

It's... the enneagram buhm buhm buhmmmmm

Haha that was pretty much the motivation, so it’s great to hear the quality stands out 🙌

Thanks!

Thank you very much 🙏

Thanks so much for leaving such a thoughtful (and kind) response! Love hearing the specific ways it resonated. As an sp 3, do people tend to think you’re a 1? I can definitely carve out some time to do the counter types in my upcoming “common mistypes” series.

You’re welcome/thanks! I’d love to hear your perspective on common mistypes/why/how to distinguish! I think my tritype is 3-7-1 (ENFP), and I’ve mainly heard 1, 7, and 5w4. People occasionally think I’m whatever type they are 😜 I don’t know if that’s the chameleon-ing aspect. (This became an embarrassingly-long and detailed essay… but in case it’s helpful): I’ve struggled with my type (so have worked with a couple of coaches / consumed many books/blogs/podcasts/videos in my attempt!). While I relate strongly to aspects of each of those types, I can explain the similarities in other ways, and the core issues of the 3 are what touch me the most (basically, feel the most painful and like I don’t want anyone to know!). My definitions of success have also come to be more about trying to be kind to others and hoping to make a positive impact through what I do and how I am, aiming for MY best/self-improvement, learning, and creating. Some of those don’t have very apparent ✅ or ⭐️ or ladders to climb. When at my worst/most insecure, I come back to the questions of ‘who am I, apart from what I can do at an exceptional level?’ (and I feel worried and insecure when I can’t perform up to my high standards) and ‘what is there for you to like or interest you in me, apart from the things I can do to “razzle-dazzle” you?’, or ‘who/how do I need to be right now, and how am I doing?’ It’s a sense of continuously needing to earn love/my place in the universe or win people over through being exceptional and/or what I think people want. Past laurels don’t count (or not for much), and for an additional ego boost, I need to keep setting the bar higher. Being “exemplary” and work-focused can also make being close to people hard. So, that feels the most like a 3 (but I welcome your thoughts!). I experienced some trauma as an adult (and moved to a new area, where I didn’t know anyone) and for a period, could no longer control or put forward a “chosen” (usually “happy”) version of myself or perform the exceptional things that I thought made me who I was and why I had friends ~ basically, I could only be authentically who and how I was in the moment (which included messy, sad, and needing to talk about my problems), which sometimes felt awful and inappropriate - and I was stunned to find that others were still interested in me, even in that “faulty” way of being (I was very saddened to realize I had that notion in my mind! But it was a good lesson to learn, and I learned how to have deeper friendships! I also definitely experienced the functioning vs feeling mode (and there are usually puddles of tears under the surface, though I often have to first get through anger to access the soft parts/tears)! Getting better at doing both ~ and the 4 wing/Fi and my work in the performing arts ensure that I don’t neglect processing emotions for too long). Similarities to 1: mainly what can look like perfectionism, always wanting to improve / 3SP desire to truly BE the things they want others to think they are (I don’t relate to the “cutting corners” or embellishing a résumé aspect of some 3s) and striving for humility (as an adult, I often downplay some of my accomplishments, mainly because I worry that it might create a sense of inequality; and I certainly don’t want others to know that I “need” their admiration!). I also work in the performing arts where “the best” and a ladder to climb are more ambiguous/not just achievable through hard work and being very talented (eg, sometimes I haven’t gotten work because I’m a little too tall [or various other things] for what they want) - so that has helped me aim more for MY best as a benchmark (but external praise and admiration still mean more to me than just my own opinion of my work… and I feel on top of the world for a little while and extremely benevolent when I am lauded for my work). 7: In health, I see a lot of similarities (also explainable through MBTI/ExxP types), but I don’t feel like the core issues impact me enough. I think my mom is a 7w8, and I know I aspire toward some 7-traits like positivity, being entertaining/interesting, I am usually very busy working and basically never feel bored because I always have my mind, and I am extremely curious/interested in many different things. I’ve learned that what is worth aspiring toward is more about how happy/content I feel about my life vs just impressive achievements (eg, when I’ve achieved some things I’ve aimed for, they’ve been nice, but a bit empty) ~ but that doesn’t feel like a particularly 7-ish perspective toward happiness. 5w4: primarily surface-level (deep love of and a sense of empowerment through learning/knowledge and competency) or when recovering from trauma (the therapist who introduced me to the enneagram was a 5w4 and thought I may have also been. I think that was more because I was withdrawing from the world because I persistently didn’t feel good about myself for the first time in my life, and because it was the first time doing any deep, vulnerable feelings-y self-work or experiencing a lot of pain and I felt very robotic initially! I still prefer to “feel my feelings” privately and then can share them with others once I’ve already processed them. Feeling certain feelings in real-time in front of others is excruciating and embarrassing). I do feel connected to aspects of 4-ness (being unique, special, empathetic, introspective, wanting to be authentic or have some sense of “who I am”, being artistic, and loving beauty), but it feels like more of a flavor (that gets stronger if I don’t feel good about myself) than a real relationship to the 4’s core issues/common attributes (eg, I don’t feel defective or want a rescuer; and under “normal” life circumstances, I don’t feel melancholy, and I don’t really like “dark” things ~ I want to stay in the “cheerful”). That was another factor for me in trying to distinguish between 7 and 3. 🤡 If you’re still reading this epic description ~ thanks 🙃 It’s also therapeutic for me to write things out sometimes 😉 I really do appreciate and have been enjoying your videos - thank you for shedding some new light on these topics!

@@ashleywagner8650 Whew Idk who is calling you a 5w4 but they must not know the enneagram well! haha 5w4s are probably the most opposite type to a charismatic 3 or 7.

@@YouveGotaType Yes, I think the only people who have ever thought 5 are either friends who only know “funny meme” enneagram and/or seeing me in trauma-response, which was a very altered version of who I normally was/am (that therapist was Riso-Hudson certified and we didn’t spend tons of time on Enneagram stuff together, but other than intellectual curiosity, when I first read The Wisdom of the Enneagram, I couldn’t see other aspects of 5; I mostly felt like a shell of a 3 - like I couldn’t live up to who I used to be or how a 3 “should” be, so I must be something else). I actually am curious about how trauma affects type. I know the theory is that one doesn’t change types throughout life, but I became so interested in both MBTI and Enneagram because I didn’t know how to explain who I used to be and how I had changed so much. I’m guessing that’s really beyond the scope of these systems and more just “human,” but I’ve always been hoping for an interesting and tidy system to explain it for me and also tell me how to “solve” it 😉 If you have any interest/expertise in how something very life (and personality) altering impacts finding your type, I’d be interested in your thoughts!

@@ashleywagner8650 Phew, well, I have lots of thoughts on how trauma impacts finding your type! But the comment section on RU-vid is a hard place to put them :) Have you read The Body Keeps The Score? I think it's one of the most profound and widely celebrated works on the topic, although it's not in any way tied to the enneagram. Richard Rohr did write about the "original wound theory" which states that we actually start out looking like the type we go to in health/integration. So I as a Type 1 actually was a Type 7 child until my ego was wounded and I became planted in the Type 1 position. I do believe that the Circle is the most important part of the enneagram shape as it reminds us that we are all one, and we have all characteristics inside of us to some degree. Rohr also said that we'd all probably be healthy 9s if we had no woundings and life was perfect since 9s embody the traits of/empathize with all other types. Last thing I'd say is that I believe great love & great suffering are the only two things that bring about true self-awareness, and ultimately, self-acceptance. I guess that means we are "changed" by them, but it's more so that we become more of who we always were. So I don't *technically* believe trauma effects type, but I do believe trauma makes you more aware of your essence (the part of us that transcends ego). This was too long haha... but hopefully it's helpful!

Hope this video was helpful in that process!

Thanks so much! And glad it was semi-therapeutic haha. Also appreciate you sharing your personal reflection/experience of these concepts 🙌

Thanks!

Good to hear 🙌

I'm glad to hear this video was so enjoyable/educational for ya! I would recommend anything by Don Riso & Russ Hudson. I think they've got the purest interpretation of the enneagram types as both psychological & spiritual identities.

Glad to hear you've got your type - and hope ya enjoy the type 6 deep dive.

Hmmmm I & F plus the fact that you said you love being special sounds more 4w3 (4s are introverted feeling types)... 4s go to 1 in health which would look "perfectionistic." Just a thought ;)

Glad to hear it!

Thanks so much!

So glad you enjoyed it! And yeah it could be a 3 OR 6 thing to say ;)

3s are certainly one of the most likely types to struggle with narcissistic tendencies, with type 4 also being high up there as well.

I’m Type 1 wing 9 ;)

So glad you liked it :) the only correlation I can speak to is the ENFJ, which I did another short video on here: ru-vid.comKwj7wu1e-Tw?feature=share

Well, it's not so much about lying, as it is about self-deception. 3s do so many things to adapt their image to what other people like/want and then they tell themselves it's who they truly are. That's the core issue. Telling some white lies to avoid embarrassment is more of an occasional symptom for most average 3s, and I would say all 3s value honesty. Whether or not they have the courage to be entirely honest with themselves about their shame is a different thing altogether :)

@@YouveGotaType Oooh! I do try to be honest with myself and others, but I can see how I could try and accommodate what others like and want over myself. I can look back and see myself not telling others how I feel in fear of them not wanting to be with me if I ever expressed myself. I have worked on myself a lot and have done my best to be honest with myself and what my desires are. Though, I am having trouble achieving anything and have been the last few years.

Well you just described type 9 to a tee! Would love to hear your thoughts after watching this episode: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dkYR6b_hUMQ.html

@@YouveGotaType ok! I'll jump to that next! Thank you!! 😁

@@draeleigh1 No prob!

I loved the type 9 video!!

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Truly the sound of the 3 ego wrestling with being convicted vs. being cocky.

Dang your right again. I sound so cocky reading that back… I would enjoy a video on relationships for type 3! Enjoy your clean direct style of videos

@@ZponMaster Thanks much! And that's my next series ironically, going in order from 1 to 9, so 3s should be up shortly.

If you're still in your teens, then I would ease up on the enneagram types and focus solely and acting from an authentic place knowing that you're gunna make a bundle of mistakes and that's OK! Sometimes it's better not to overthink things, especially as a young person where there's so much gray area to all your decisions and there's no way to know exactly who you are yet. My only advice would be to learn how to sit still with your thoughts, meditate, breathe, and simply become aware of what's driving your thoughts & actions. Awareness, not labeling yourself, is the foundation to everything. Best wishes!

@@YouveGotaType thankyou so much for these words!!i suppose i do put too much emphasis on figuring out stuff like enneagram type and all.But lets leave it all for the future for now😌

As are the coaches themselves often times...

That sounds more like a 6 that goes to 3 in disintegration...

What exactly do you feel I missed? (Please provide source materials if you have them). Also keep in mind - these are just flyovers of all the main enneagram concepts. Not meaty deep dives.

Hmm who knows!

I saw type 1 somewhere

I'm hoping you're not watching these just for the last segment on Marvel characters 🤞

@@YouveGotaType No, I've known about the Enneagram since the 90s.

Makes sense. Lots of assertive traits, although the ENTJ is a bit more bullish than many 3s. studio.ru-vid.comVnvYJcad65M/edit

You really didn't listen well here. Everything in the enneagram is about levels of health around a core struggle. So if the core struggle is authenticity, then the low side is deception/self-deception based on shame, and the high side is authenticity based on self-love and self-acceptance. Hope that helps clarify things for ya.