Hello friends! I am so excited to be bringing you a post that is a bit more on the personal side instead of business or photography!! Today I am talking about Ennegrams, Type Fours, and how it relates to my life and my business!!

DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert and this information is just based on my own experience and research. Thanks!

To start, and Ennegram is a personality type based around the human psyche meaning it is something deeply personal and not something that will change over the course of time. A lot of people are into things like Astrology or the Meyers-Briggs personality test but, if I’m being honest, neither of those ever really fit me in it’s predicitions or descriptions…

But the Enneagram Test…?! It has fit me to a T!! And not only that…it has also described people I know extremely accurately AND what can be expected of my relationships with them based on our Types is ALSO accurate. It’s crazy, right?! This is something that is incredibly fascinating to me and might be for you too! You can find out your enneagram by taking a test (I don’t remember which I took but this one seems good and is free!).

SO WHAT’S MY TYPE
So I am an Enneagram Type Four, which ironically enough is “the Individualist” and also the rarest type, with a wing 3 which makes me “The Aristocrat”. Boiled down, this means that in its most basic sense, what I fear most is lacking personal significance and what I desire most is to create an identity. This is something that I never really thought about prior to researching my type but that makes so much sense for so much of my life’s path.

HEALTHY VS. UNHEALTHY LEVEL
Some of you who have followed me for a while will know that I struggle with a lot in terms of mental health. I live with both high anxiety and moderate depression and, as anybody with mental health issues can attest to, there are good times and there are not so good times. You may also know that I took a rather dramatic-seeming hiatus at the end of 2019 and part of that reason was my mental health. Relating this to my Enneagram (since that is the point of this post after all…) I was experiencing very unhealthy levels as a 4 after an incredibly hard year in life, in work, and in my business.

As I type this, I am in an average level but nearing the healthy range for my psyche in terms of my type-four-ness. Part of my unhealthiness was longing to be successful to the detriment of myself and my individuality. I longed so much to be unique…that I lost everything about me that made me unique. I’ve been working a lot with my mental health and am slowly but surely learning to trust myself to make decisions based on nobody but me. This goes for everything from how I run my business (doesn’t mean I don’t take advice or invest in education…), how I share myself online, and through the spaces I surround myself with.

I am somebody who is a huge people-pleaser at the core of who I am and I think it definitely has something to do with the amount of manners thrust at me during youth and how they always gained me favor with teachers and adults. Well, that left me wanting everybody to like me and, in that attempt, I wound up not liking myself.

I’d much rather be one persons cup of coffee than everybody’s cup of tea (mostly because I don’t really like tea)…

WHAT THAT MEANS FOR MY BUSINESS
A lot of business owners are Type Threes or “The Achiever” and for a good reason. Type threes love to feel valuable and are incredibly driven at their core. I know this…because I am married to a Type Three.

And yet, I’m  the business owner of the two of us.

One of my favorite creative business owners is Megan Martin. She also loves things fun and colorful and she is also NOT a Type Three!! (She’s a Type Six for anybody wondering) and her experience navigating business in a world that feels dominated but plans, schedules, and Type Three mindsets got me thinking hard about how to make my business work for ME.

I am not somebody who does well with schedules and to do lists. I am much more of a “get it done as soon as possible” kind of person which isn’t a good thing or a bad thing…just a different thing that I needed to figure out. For a long time I assumed I wasn’t cut out for the small business world because my mind just doesn’t work the way everybody else’s does. But I knew this was what I wanted to do.

So what did I do??

I automated everything…

Yupp! You read that right! I found ways to automate so much of my business that I don’t need to try and work with schedules and to do lists. I’d love to share more about all of that but each part of my automation process is a full blog post in itself. And maybe you don’t work that way either, even if you are also a Type 4 and that is OKAY!! What I’m saying is, try things that might be different or unconventional and make them work for YOU!!

Anywhoooooo…

If you’ve read this far, thank you so much! I loved getting to share something a little more personal with you. I know I can get a bit rambly sometimes so sorry about that. If you have any other personal-type posts that you’d like to read, let me know!!

Best Wishes,
Chelsea