What was the last thing you had on your to-do list that you just couldn’t get yourself to do no matter what? Was it writing an email to your list? Scheduling social media posts? Setting up Amazon ads? Revising the next scene?
We all experience that. An item keeps getting pushed back and back and back. It can become baffling, but the cause is usually the same. We’re not discriminating enough about what we let on our to-do list. It becomes a “should do” list. We hear about something authors should do and so we add it to the list without a second thought about whether it’s right for us or we’re excited to do it.
Then it sits on our list, collecting cobwebs and haunting us, adding to the feeling that we’re always a thousand tasks behind.
Why are some tasks so much harder for us to do than others?
Rarely is it the case that we don’t want to be writers anymore, that the love it gone, that if only we wanted to be writers badly enough we would launch into some sort of high-activity frenzy in pursuit of our dreams. Leave that kind of obsession to Stephen King protagonists, frankly.
One reason why we struggle with our to-do list is that we’re not internally motivated to do the tasks. They don’t stoke our core desire or trigger our core fear enough for us to find them engaging at all.
This means that unless you can connect the items to your core motivation or create external motivators (the old stick and carrot, remember?), they’re either never getting done, or when you do them, the most emotional satisfaction you can hope to get will come solely from that power-drunk feeling of ticking boxes.
So, how do we know what our core fear and core desire are, so we can pander to them bully them into submission work with them rather than against them?
Welcome back to this series where we explore what motivates us and how we might build a life that works with our creative impulses rather than against them. To read the previous entries, go here: www.ffs.media/story-tips/category/Motivation+series
The Enneagram is a motivation framework that dates back in various forms for hundreds of years. Some people claim there are traces of it from thousands of years ago, but I don’t personally have enough evidence to support that, and I don’t think it matters. What does matter is that it’s a psychological tool that helps us understand the driving forces that make people do what they do.
But most importantly, it’s a language system that helps us understand why we do what we do. You’ll see a lot of familiar psychological terms in it like fear, desire, liberation, stress, growth, fixation, sense of self, and so forth. It’s not reinventing anything, just cataloging and organizing what we already know about psychological patterns associated with each core motivation.
Personal improvement has always been a focus of mine. I was a severe perfectionist in my younger years, and to those who would tell me “perfection isn’t realistic” or (since I’m in Texas) “Only Jesus is perfect,” I would simply think, Sounds like you’re not trying hard enough.
As you probably guessed, I was miserable for most of my life. I developed chronic acid reflux by age 17. When I wasn’t driving myself too hard, I could be found telling myself how bad of a person I was, or simply going through the motions of the straight-A student while secretly longing to be committed to a mental institution so I had a valid excuse to rest.
And I didn’t understand any of it. I thought that this was what life was like for everyone, which left me baffled as to how people could act indifferent toward things I cared so much about.
Maybe this sounds familiar. All I’m describing here is the state of being trapped so totally in unconscious patterns that it’s impossible to imagine any other way of being.
“This isn’t working for me, but I have no idea how else to be.” It’s a common refrain. We all hit these walls throughout our life.
I tried journaling and therapy, and that helped some, but ultimately what helped me hack my way through my limiting belief patterns (after finally seeing them for the first time) was learning about the Enneagram.
The word motivation comes from the Late Latin word movere which means “to move.” It’s how you move things. It’s motion. How do you get yourself from the comfort of your bed each morning into motion? What moves you to the computer to get those words done? That’s the question we’re asking here.
It’s simple: either a fear or a desire causes us to move. Those are the two options. Maybe you’re afraid of running out of money if you don’t publish your next book on time. Maybe you’re fueled by the desire to find yourself on stage in front of thousands of people someday, discussing your latest release. Maybe the dog is whining for food, and you want nothing more than to shut them up (just for example, say). These are all valid reasons to get out of bed.
Sometimes, though, they run thin.
Figuring out which fear and which desire are most near and dear to your heart is the trick.
The Enneagram includes 9 types of these “core motivations.”
“Only 9 types?” Yes. Everything can be reduced to these nine. Wait until you read about them before protesting.
According to the Riso-Hudson (RHETI) model, the Enneagram types are:
One, the Reformer
Two, the Helper
Three, the Achiever
Four, the Individualist
Five, the Investigator
Six, the Loyalist
Seven, the Enthusiast
Eight, the Challenger
Nine, the Peacemaker
Each type has a core fear and core desire that are essentially two side of the same coin. For instance, the Investigator’s core fear is to be incompetent, and their core desire is to be competent or self-sufficient. I’ve found it useful for those getting familiar with this to boil the motivation down to a central concern for each type. It’s a smaller portion to bite into. In the case of the Investigator, the central concern would simply be “competency.”
Below are the types with their central concerns. The added words in parentheses can be helpful to triangulate the concept.
One, the Reformer
Central concern: Goodness (or Integrity, Morality)
Two, the Helper
Central concern: Love (or Help, Worth)
Three, the Achiever
Central concern: Value (or Worthiness, Success)
Four, the Individualist
Central concern: Significance (or Identity)
Five, the Investigator
Central concern: Competence (or Self-sufficiency, Resourcefulness)
Six, the Loyalist
Central concern: Support (or Security, Loyalty)
Seven, the Enthusiast
Central concern: Satisfaction (or Pleasure/Pain)
Eight, the Challenger
Central concern: Power (or Protection, Autonomy)
Nine, the Peacemaker
Central concern: Connection (or Peace, Harmony)
This doesn’t mean that only Sevens want satisfaction. All types like feeling satisfied, just as all types dislike being denied satisfaction or trapped in a state of deprivation. And it doesn’t mean that Sevens only want satisfaction and don’t care about anything else. But when given the choice between an opportunity to be satisfied and anything else, the Seven will consciously or subconsciously choose satisfaction.
Don’t worry if this seems oversimplified because this is a 101-level use of the Enneagram. The framework can become as complex as you let it. But we’re not going there yet.
The discovery I made that changed the trajectory of my life was that I was a One, the Reformer. Have been my whole life (our type is a birth-to-death thing).
My problematic patterns were a result of my central concern of Goodness. I was afraid of being bad or corrupt, and the messages I received early in my life (who knows where, precisely, but they were lodged in there) were that to be a good person, I had to be a perfect person. There was no reward in my mind for being good, doing the right thing, acting with integrity. It was the standard. Meanwhile, every so-called imperfection was points off. When I received a 99 on a test, all I saw was the point off. I’d failed to achieve perfection, in that case. I was bad.
And now? I let that go. Sure, I sometimes feel the twinge, but it’s a conscious impulse now, so I can see it for what it is. By noticing this pattern over and over again, I’ve unraveled it. Now, I understand that I don’t have to be perfect to be perfectly constructed for some bigger purpose. That may sound obvious, but to a Reformer prior to her Enneagram journey, it’s anything but.
These are the types of forehead slapper moments of liberation that come from learning about our Enneagram type. Before, I didn’t see a way out of feeling the way I felt. Now, I not only feel better, but I know what it looks like for someone like me to be emotionally healthy. I can see the next step toward a purposeful and empowered life for me. When things start to feel off and wrong and miserable, I can take a step back, identify the problem using the framework, and adjust accordingly.
Over the next nine weeks, I’m going to break down each of the Enneagram types for you and talk about how each kind can design and align a career using that inner core motivation. The more we tap into that, the easier everything becomes, including but not limited to your writing and marketing.
I encourage you to read and learn about every type, even if you already know which one is yours. While this is a tool for self-discovery, I’ve also found it to be a great resource for understanding your relationships (and their naturally arising conflicts) with other types.
Learning all nine types will help you make sense of your co-writers, your readers, your characters, your marriage, your parents, your enemies, and the woman having a meltdown at the grocery store. That small bit of understanding can make the difference between reacting on impulse or responding thoughtfully and in terms the other person understands.
Next week, we’ll start with how to find you writing motivation if you’re a Type 1, the Reformer. This is my type, but it’s also the type of Nelson Mandela, Tiny Fey, Atticus Finch, Hermione Granger, and Osama bin Laden. (Gotta take the bad with the good.)
If you don’t want to miss any installments of this series on motivation, be sure to whitelist contact@ffs.media by adding me as a contact. And if you know of someone who might enjoy this series (alternate motive: you’ll have someone to discuss it with), they can sign up to my list and skip the onboarding sequence by going to www.ffs.media/readnow.
If you want to find your Enneagram type now, the best way to start is to take a test and then read about your top three or four scores to see which one feels the most accurate. The test at www.enneagraminstitute.com is my favorite, but it does cost $12 (I get no kickbacks from your purchase). That’s not nothing, but it’s cheaper than therapy.