Motivations vs. Behaviors: How the Development of Our Habits Relates to Our Unique Personalities

When a pattern of behavior is repeated often enough, the brain does its magic and helps us use less energy and resources to repeat this behavior.  Our brain is monitoring all of our patterns as a way to find areas where it can reserve energy, in the event we need those precious reserves for our coping responses.  We develop these patterns as early as childhood, which means how we move in the world is hardwired into our subconscious minds over the span of decades.

Some of these habits are helpful and become an intrinsic part of our personalities (such as your Enneagram Type).  Yet others can be unhelpful, or at the very least frustrating, even if they were started as coping strategies using the best of what we knew at the time.  The unhelpful habits can make it hard for us to consciously recognize what we do, what we say, how we act, and how we feel.

This is one of the many reasons why the Enneagram is essential to this work – because it can be a powerful tool to help us better understand these patterns and the motivations that live underneath them.

When we look at what we do (and try to only support what we are ‘carrying’), we often are only addressing the symptom, not why we’ve become accustomed to carrying it in the first place.  As we grow and evolve, it becomes our work to differentiate between the ‘safe feelings’ our habits create with how they may be keeping us from showing up as our best selves.