Enneagram Type SEVEN


                                     The Enthusiast


Sevens are optimistic, energetic, possibilities-oriented people who appreciate life and want to live it to its fullest.

At their best, they are multitalented people who learn fast and have many abilities in many diverse areas. They are the masters of brainstorming. They have curious and agile minds and can quickly generate new ideas. Their minds are especially great at finding associations, interconnections, and interrelationships between seemingly unconnected events, and they use this ability to see patterns where most people would miss them. They are ingenious, creative, and imaginative. They are “big picture” planners who can multitask and work on many projects at the same time, but they are also focused and disciplined and know how to bring a project to completion. Although their minds are agile and fast, they can pause and make decisions with serenity.

They are endowed with a love for life and a natural optimism and enthusiasm that are highly contagious. They are high-spirited, positive, adventurous, and upbeat and can motivate others with their energy. They can naturally look for the good in everything that happens in their life and in the lives of the people around them. They teach us how to appreciate the simplest things in life. How to be fascinated and obtain joy from daily and minor events, and learn to be satisfied and happy in the present moment. They are happy because they can also accept life's difficulties, frustrations, and pain without reacting to them or resisting them or trying to escape from them. This also makes them resilient—they know how to accept a crisis and turn it into a challenge, into an opportunity. They also know how to recover and “bounce back” from stress and crises.

They are fun to be around, are great conversationalists, and usually are the “life of the party” with their energetic sense of humor and entertaining storytelling. They can be charming, cheerful, and playful.

In the Stuckness Zone, an intense desire to maintain a sense of happiness and well-being starts running inside them. An “I must keep myself busy and excited” belief dominates their thinking. Consequently, their attention automatically goes to seeking variety and finding new possibilities and new sources of stimulation on one hand, and to the avoidance of negative emotions, pain, frustration, and boredom on the other. Since staying in motion is so important to them, special emphasis is put on defending their freedom and independence against anything or anyone they perceive as limiting or restrictive to them.

They become restless and less focused. They become interested in too many things, as if trying not to miss anything on the spectrum of possibilities that life has to offer, jumping from one track to another as if they couldn't say no to themselves. They keep planning for more activities and want to keep their options open, thus creating an inability to narrow their focus. As a result, they have a problem with commitment and completion. They start projects and don't have the discipline or the patience to complete them. They feel trapped and lose interest in a project once they have already started and the initial excitement is gone. As a result of their overextending themselves, their lack of focus and lack of discipline, their many talents may become wasted (or not fully developed to their potential), and their many dreams may not come to realization.

Their planning habit can backfire on them: the more they plan, the more they live in the future, and consequently the less they can feel joy in the present moment or appreciate what they do have. Anger and frustration arise from this, as they can't feel truly content in spite of their multiple activities, distractions, and busy schedules. Anxiety builds and they turn to even more planning and busier schedules in the hope of finding new pleasurable things and activities that will lessen that anxiety. They become escapists: self-indulgent, self-centered, bitter, uninhibited, impulsive, infantile, insensitive, and demanding.

Stress and emotional drain arise since it is very difficult to maintain a “happy,” “negativity-free” life for long periods as they try to do. Physical, financial, and emotional exhaustion arise from their busy, hyperactive lifestyle.


Type description, from "From Stuckness to Growth: Enneagram Coaching" (2012) by Yechezkel & Ruth Madanes



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