Motivation: Further Considerations & Conclusion

Are you motivated yet? Have you caught up on all the types, homed in on yours, followed the suggestions, and found that you’ll never feel unmotivated again?

Yeah, that’s okay. Progress can be slow. In fact, the kind that lasts almost always is.

Maybe you’re one of the many people who struggle to figure out what type you are, so you don’t know which advice is for you yet. That’s okay, too!

The Enneagram is a framework that people study and refer back to over the course of their lifetime. If you’re feeling unmotivated in your writing, I understand the sense of urgency to remedy that, but a little patience goes a long way. Every step forward is a victory, and even some of the steps backward are victories too.

This series was never intended to be a quick-fix (if only those existed!) but has always been more of an introduction to the concepts. For instance, the first time someone asked me to question the belief that productivity and service to others was a sign of how good of a person I was, that shit just did. not. compute.

These are deeply rooted false scripts we’re talking about, the bedrock of a lot of your other beliefs about the world, so the first step is simply to hear someone else say, “Hey, maybe they’re not capital-T Truth. Maybe someone or a group or a society put them there by accident or on purpose because it made you more useful to them.” Learning about the Enneagram is simply naming the lens through which we see the world, and that launches us into questioning some things we always thought were givens.

So like I said, no hurry here. Transformation works on its own schedule.

In the meantime, I want to address some concerns and touch on considerations for why you haven’t gone from writing a few words a day to thousands upon thousands of the best words you’ve ever written.

First, and I’m not trying to be cute here, but have you tried any of the suggestions? It’s easy to forget to put the new tricks into practice, but that is a requirement to, you know, use them.

Now, let’s start with this common question first:

Question: “Can I be two types?”

Answer: Sort of, but not really. Everyone has a “dominant type.” That is our starting point, our main lens. But there are all sorts of reasons you would legitimately relate more to other types in various situations!

The Enneagram isn’t stagnant. We flow to and access different types at certain points in our human experience. Here are some explanations for that:

1. You feel evenly split between two numbers that are next to each other numerically (Nine and One are considered next to each other, BTW.)

If this is the case, like, “I can’t tell if I’m a Two or a Three,” then there’s a high likelihood that one of those is your dominant type, and the other is your “wing.” A wing is a number on either side of yours whose qualities you can draw from to support your dominant type. So, you could be an Achiever (3) with a Helper (2) wing, which would mean that you use helping and being needed (2) to support your quest for value (3). That’s written as a “3w2.”

Or you could be a Helper with an Achiever wing, which would mean you use your ability to bring value to others (3) to feel wanted and needed (2). That’s written as a “2w3.”

The difference is subtle, but it’s there. Some people have access to both wings, some have access to one, and some have access to neither.

For instance, I’m a Reformer who predominantly leans on her Helper wing (1w2), but I have easy access to my Peacemaker wing (9) when diplomacy and finding the common ground is the best way to support my goal of being good and having integrity (1w9).

If you find that the two types you’re split between are next to each other, this is probably why.

2. You feel evenly split between two numbers that are not next to each other.

When this happens, we’re usually dealing with 1. a dominant-stress pair, 2. A dominant-security pair, 3. a number in your tri-type, or 4. a strong overlay. Let’s look at each of these.

Your dominant-stress pair: Each type can begin to resemble a different type under prolonged stress. This is not a bad thing! The options under stress are either to spiral down the development levels (not a good look) or shoot over into our stress number for a little break from whatever ails us.

So, if your dominant type is Five, under prolonged stress (and the definition of “prolonged” is super relative to the way your nervous system and brain are wired), you may start to look more like the avoidant levels of type Seven. You might retreat from the stressors rather than trying to figure them out.

Here are the stress numbers for each type (dominant typestress number):

1→ 4

2→ 8

3→ 9

4→ 2

5→ 7

6→ 3

7→ 1

8→ 5

9→ 6

So, if you’re vacillating between one of these pairings as your dominant type, consider whether one is your stress type and the other is your dominant type.

Your dominant-security pair: Similar to the stress type, we have a security type. This is what we begin to resemble in a secure environment—around friends who get us, a job where we’re killing it, or family members who don’t actively stress us out.

So, if your dominant type is Four, in secure moments you’ll look a little like a One with more balanced emotions and maybe a touch of criticism for those around you. As you become a healthy Four, though, you’ll unlock the higher levels of One in these situations (this is when we refer to it as the “growth number,” and embody sound wisdom, moral clarity, and integrity.

Here are the security numbers for each type (dominantsecurity):

1 → 7

2→ 4

3→ 6

4→ 1

5→ 8

6→ 9

7→ 5

8→ 2

9→ 3

But wait, did you catch that? Because these are the same pairings as above, only the arrows are reversed! So, yes, if you’re trying to decide whether you’re a Two or an Eight, say, you’ll have to parse whether you’re dealing with a dominant type and a stress number or a dominant type and a growth number.

Asking yourself when each type shows up is a smart place to start with that. Who are you when you’ve taken too much on? Who are you when you’re feeling good with your friends?

Your Tri-Type: This is a more complex Enneagram topic, but essentially it comes down to “triads.” The nine types break down into three triads: 8-9-1, 2-3-4, 5-6-7.

8-9-1 are known as the “Gut Triad.” This covers how you relate to your primary experience of the world through your body and includes your connection to intuition. These types, when healthy, possess incredibly strong intuition, but use it different ways.

2-3-4 are known as the “Heart Triad.” This covers how you relate to your primary experience of the world through your emotions. These types, when healthy, are incredibly connected to their emotions, but use them in different ways.

5-6-7 are known as the “Head Triad.” This covers how you relate to your primary experience of the world through your thoughts. These types, when healthy, are incredibly connected to their minds, but use them in different ways.

But we all have a body, mind, and emotions, don’t we? This is what our Tri-Type represents.

How do you experience the world through each of these modes? One will occur first, according to your dominant type, then the information will kick over to another triad, and finally make its way to the last. And when it does, how do you use it?

For example, my Tri-Type is 1-5-3, so I’m occasionally mistaken for a Five or a Three, and I relate strongly to those types. I’m gut instinct first (1), but then I quickly kick that information up to my head to justify and verify my instincts (5), and then I eventually let those emotions through in as productive of a manner as I can (3). One then Five then Three.

This is yet another reason why you might relate strongly to more than one type.

A strong overlay: Overlays are these weird Enneagram vibes that are thrust upon us by the values of the groups we belong to. Your family of origin, for instance, had an Enneagram overlay, which would push you to look more like a particular type, even if that wasn’t your type. In this case, the overlay is usually the type of one of the parents. Maybe your father was a Five and impressed upon everyone else in the household the importance of intelligence and knowledge above all else.

If you took the test while you were still living under his roof (or before you’d unpacked a big box of daddy issues with a professional or friends), you might test as a Five, even if you were a Three. You would very likely come to associate your value (a core theme of the Three) with how knowledgeable you are (the Five overlay), and you would need to untangle those two things before it became crystal clear what your true type was all along.

Families have overlays. Religious communities have overlays. Friend groups and teams have overlays. Even countries have overlays. Sometimes it takes peeling back a few of these layers before we can see ourselves clearly. In the meantime, you might be relating strongly to the overlay and wonder if it’s your dominant type as a result.

Question: “Why do I relate strongly to almost all of the types?”

Answer: There are lessons for us to learn in each of the types, but also you’re probably a Four or a Nine.

Some of the types’ essential experiences read loud and clear to people of those types. In my experience, Sixes, Fives, Sevens, Eights, and Ones tend to immediately say, “Okay, yeah, you got me.” Twos and Threes come around eventually.

But the Fours and Nines can find themselves super stuck, and this makes a lot of sense when you look at those core motivations, and the values and gifts those lead to.

If you’re a Four, you necessarily do battle with identity. It’s a fluid thing that you don’t like trying to pin down (even if you’re desperate to pin it down). Instead, firmly nestled in the Heart triad, you are likely to overidentify with your emotions, meaning one day you’ll think, I guess I’m a contemplative person, because that’s how you’re feeling that day. And the next you’ll think, I guess I’m a sensitive person, and the next you’ll think, Turns out I’m a joyful person.

We all experience a broad range of emotions, but we don’t tend to anchor our identity to them unless we’re a Four (or have a Four wing, stress number, security number, or have it in our tri-type). So, when a Four reads about the other types, she’ll tend to think, “Oh yes, I’ve had that emotional experience. Maybe this is my identity.” It’s the struggle to weigh one emotional experience over the other and the need to tether her horse to one that can make it hard for a Four to self-identify as a Four. Is this you, perhaps?

And then there’s the Nine. When you can see the world from so many perspectives, as can the Peacemaker, it’s easy to lose sight of your own. The gift of diplomacy that allows you to relate to everyone is the same one that makes it tricky to figure out where you end and they begin.

Nines struggle more than any other type to figure out they are Nines, and it usually takes me nosing around in their full test results before I can find the patterns with wings, stress, and security to say, “Hey, maybe take another look at the Peacemaker and see if it hits.”

Question: Why do none of the types sound especially like me?

Answer: You might be focusing too much on the behavioral descriptions and not enough on the core motivations and values.

There are these things called “subtypes,” and for each type, one of the subtypes is called the “counter type.” This is way more complicated than I’m going to get into here, but suffice to say that the way you react to your core fears and desires might be atypical of the type.

That’s why it’s important to focus on the core fears/desires and the values of the type. No matter your subtype, if you’re an Eight, you’re going to fear being controlled or harmed, desire autonomy and power over yourself, and your central values will revolve around power, strength, and vulnerability. You might not be picking fights left and right (a common behavior that can result from the motivations), especially if you’re extremely introverted, but these essential parts of the type—fear, desire, values—will still be present for you.

Question: My type used to describe me, but now it doesn’t seem as accurate. Have I changed types?

Answer: Nope. I’ve never spoken with or read an Enneagram expert who said anything other than: “We stay the same type for our whole life.” Whether we are born as our type (nature) or develop it around the age of 3 or 4 (nurture) is still very much up for debate, but the fact remains: you are the same dominant type for the duration.

So what gives? Why does it not seem as accurate as it once did? As usual, it could be one or more of a few root causes.

1. You’ve been living or once lived most of your life in your stress number.

You can hang around in your stress type for years and years if the stressors remains in place. I can’t tell you how many authors were testing as their stress type during the pandemic.

Mothers of young children also tend to test in their stress type, and if you’ve worked a job that made you miserable for the last ten years, you were probably spending a lot of that time in stress. So it’s possible that when you originally tested, you tested as your stress number, and now you’re in a healthier situation and your dominant type gets to show up and live its best life.

2. You’ve grown!

It’s easiest to identify the negative behavior that stems from each type than it is the positive behavior. As a result, the healthier you become, the less obviously you look like your type.

People who’ve done extensive therapy, introspection, journaling, or general emotional growth can be tricky to type, because they’ve had so much practice interacting introspectively with their core fear and desire that they are responsive rather than reactive to it as a matter of course. It rarely determines their behavior or controls their lives in obvious ways, because they no longer wish it to.

They may still be a phobic Six at heart, but because they let their values of loyalty and bravery make the decisions for them rather than their trigger of feeling unsafe/unsupported or their need for instant gratification of feeling secure and supported, they begin to identify less with their core motivations and the central need of “I am reliable.” They just are those things. And because they’re in control, they can effortlessly be many other things, too, when the occasion calls for it. They can look inspiring like the 3, principled like the 1, diplomatic like the 9, creative like the 4, and joyful like the 7. But this sort of freedom from the temptations and burdens of the type only comes after extensive work.

However, the feeling of identifying less with your type can happen relatively quickly after you start doing Enneagram work. That’s because the key to unlocking the patterns you’re stuck in is simply noticing them over and over again. The more attention you give this project, the quicker those bonds dissolve and you can anchor yourself to a higher level of development.

3. You’re shucking a strong overlay.

As we talked about before, these overlays can be tricky things. If you came from a more conformity-focused or even oppressive group, you will feel the overlay more strongly. As you get space and time away from that dynamic, you’ll feel more of your dominant type shining through, which may feel like you’ve changed types. You haven’t. You’ve just discovered yourself.

4. You mistyped yourself the first time around.

This is not uncommon and there are a bunch of fascinating cultural and social reasons for it, including overlays, gender expectations, personality disorders, and various forms of oppression. It’s not uncommon for someone to carry on thinking they’re a different type for months or even years before hitting on their true type and feeling everything click into place. And that’s okay. But it might explain why you feel like you’ve changed types.

There’s this important sentiment shared by every Enneagram teacher and expert I’ve heard or read, and it’s this: you find the Enneagram at the right time in your life. It’s never too late to find it. You may wish you’d found it decades earlier so you could be father along by this point and maybe your life would’ve gone differently, etc. It’s an understandable feeling to have. Don’t we all wish we could have the wisdom of today when we had the body and energy of decades ago? But the sooner you can let go of this unhelpful regret, the easier your growth becomes from this point forward.

So, if you’re lacking motivation for your creative work… 

Do you know your type yet?

If not, try to pin it down. Then…

Have you tried any of the suggestions mentioned for your type?

If not, pick one that seems doable and give it a genuine shot for the next week.

Did it work?

If not, try another.

Did that work?

If not… maybe you need rest.

The Enneagram isn’t a bio-hack. It’s simply a way of learning about ourselves and our needs. And no matter your type, rest is a crucial part of life.

Regardless of your core fear and core desire, when it’s time to rest (and your body, mind, and heart let you know if you listen close and don’t drown them out), follow the example of a healthy…

One: drop something that you’re doing out of a sense of personal obligation and replace it with something that brings you joy or with nothing at all.

Two: show yourself the unconditional love you deserve and ask those around you for what you need.

Three: remind others through your example of rest that each of our value is innate rather than a product of what we achieve or produce.

Four: remember that creativity is our natural state and give yourself space to let it flow in surprising and unproductive/non-monetized ways.

Five: refill your well by learning a random skill or researching something you’ve always wondered about for the sheer sake of curiosity

Six: chat with a friend who will understand your exhaustion and ask how best to support you, and then let them.

Seven: pass on pleasure and seek out deeply enjoyable activities that will fill your well and strengthen your brain’s ability for delayed gratification.

Eight: give yourself a safe space to feel weak and vulnerable; you don’t have to carry the burdens of life all of the time without showing strain.

Nine: zoom out and regain perspective on your place in the universe; you are both irreplaceable and part of something much larger than yourself.

Even if you don’t need rest right now, you will in the future. You always will. Again and again.

To call needing regular breaks a sign of failure as an author would be like calling winter a sign of the earth’s failure to remain summer. Sorry, but no. If humans did not need fallow periods in the natural course of our lives, that would make us an exception on this planet.

Everything ebbs and flows. Our misery tends to come from not resting when our bodies indicate that we should and instead berating ourselves for being tired.

So, if you need rest, rest. And if you need motivation upon returning, try out the tips I’ve provided for your type.

And if you still need guidance, schedule an Author Alignment call with me. Sometimes all we need is a little outside perspective or a sounding board who has our best interests in mind, and I can provide you both of those things in our hour-long call to get you on YOUR right track.

This concludes this series on author motivation by Enneagram type, but if you have lingering questions, please hit reply and let me know. I try to respond to everyone personally and in depth (sometimes emails do get lost in my inbox, though).

Thanks so much for sticking around an humoring me. I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have.

Motivation: Type Nine, the Peacemaker

You don’t understand what everyone’s so worked up about. The common ground is easy enough to spot, in fact, that’s usually all you see. You want to ask everyone to take a few deep breaths, but you know they wouldn’t react well to that, and you’re absolutely not looking for a fight.

It’s probably easier if you let it go. None of this matters in the grand scheme of things. Might as well turn on some Netflix and watch that cooking show you love. Ah, that’s better. And when you’re asked for you opinion on the issue, a quick, “I see where both sides are coming from,” will pass the buck along to someone else. After all, it’s true. You do see where both sides are coming from.

If you’re nodding along at this point, then you’re probably an Enneagram Type 9, the Peacemaker. And congratulations, because you’re the easiest of all personality types to get along with. But, unfortunately, that accommodating energy that everyone loves is also the biggest threat to a happy and productive writing career.

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.

Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Nine, “the Peacemaker.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build an active author life for ourselves if this is our type.

If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write complex Peacemakers, but I guarantee you have a Nine in your life, and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.

At their core, Nines’ desire is to feel whole and harmonious. Their fear is to be separated or cut off from the rest of the world. The concepts of peace and unity are central to the way the Nines relate to the world.

I’m married to a Nine, and the naturally calming energy they bring is what first caught my interest. It’s what I continue to love about him. But it’s also at the core of every moment when he makes my eye twitch. That’s because the same peaceful energy can stagnate into inaction and a somewhat soporific approach to life. It can also turn to ambivalence, which is a passive-aggressive way of making everyone else take on responsibility for major decisions. For a type like mine (One, the Reformer) who has a strong opinion about everything even when it’s not necessary, you can see how this might lead to tension over time. I’m fine making decisions, but maybe not all the decisions.

And this kind of conflict is not limited to Nines and Ones. It can form between Nines and any other type. The irony is that Peacemakers believe that by not having a strong opinion, they are avoiding conflict. And maybe that’s true in the short term, but not in the long run.

That conflict aversion is at the heart of Nine’s suffering. It’s their big lesson to learn that not all conflict weakens bonds and creates disunity. Sometimes conflict the only path to the harmony Nines so desperately seek. (Don’t we all have fun ways of keeping ourselves from what we need?)  

When I’m working with a Peacemaker who’s struggling with their WIP, it’s often because they sense the inherent conflict in writing and publishing a story. Stories require conflict, though, or else they’re just “stuff that happens,” and no matter how carefully you tiptoe around all the triggers you know of, there will be readers who take issue with your book (I saw a trigger warning on a video today for “chewing sounds”). So, yes, publishing is inherently confrontational.

But it can also be especially hard for Nines to believe anyone wants, let alone needs to hear their story. At some point in early childhood, Peacemakers learned that their wants, needs, and opinions didn’t matter, and you can imagine how that might lead to counterproductive self-talk during the writing process. If the scene is proving tricky, here comes the “Nobody cares about this anyway,” moment. Disengagement can happen quick to the sensitive Nine.

It also becomes a huge problem if the Nine’s living situation does not actively support their writing goals. If you’re afraid of conflict and every time you sit down to write, your partner acts like you’re being selfish or unhelpful or makes a snide comment, the path of least resistance, and the perceived path to external harmony, will be to either stop writing, write less, or write only when the partner is not around. But this is not the path to internal harmony. Instead, it’s a fast track to dissociation from self.

A sure-fire way to avoid conflict with someone else is to merge with them, abandoning your own wants and needs and replacing them with theirs. It’s also how Nines end up never completing their book, losing sight of themselves, and generally feeling like a ghost floating around an old, abandoned manor.  

But never fear, Nines, because you have this one amazing thing going for you: you are at one with the universe, especially when you claim your wants and needs publicly. And you’re the best suited for the tough conflicts of life because you can see things from the other side’s perspective and find a solution that works for everyone. Only through those types of solutions can true peace—not a false and precarious one—be achieved.

Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.

Below are descriptions of a Nine in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):

Healthy: Senses true autonomy and wholeness and at one with self, compelled to action by desire to spread love and connection, feels present and alive, feels and shares a deep sense of serenity, caring and diplomatic, mediates conflicts without diminishing POVs or importance of the conflict, exemplifies strong and compassionate communication, easily spots and communicates common ground without ignoring the differences.  

Average: Views conflict as something to be avoided, begins to self-erase to accommodate others, says yes when they mean no, becomes complacent and ignores problems, starts tuning out from reality, acts emotionally neglectful to themselves and others, takes a fatalistic approach of “none of this matters anyway,” frustrating in their procrastination, getting a reaction or opinion from them is like getting blood from a stone. 

Unhealthy: Disassociation intensifies, disconnection turns to harmful neglect, numbs self in attempt to silence inner voice, eventually becomes catatonic as they completely self-abandon and merge with others.  

If you’re not a Nine, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Nines can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.  

Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?

The key is to remember that unity is a matter of addition, not subtraction. You don’t create harmony between two people by erasing one of the people. That’s not harmony, it’s decimation. For harmony to exist, everyone must show up as whole as possible. The universe is a complete system, and it was born out of about as much conflict as we can imagine. But that heat gives birth to new stars and galaxies, and without it, there would be nothingness, not wholeness.

Your ability to resolve conflict is why you need to be writing, completing, and publishing your books. You can put your characters in the most perilous situation and show the reader that hope is never lost, that the solution requires everyone showing up and offering their unique gifts, and that no matter how dark that dark night of the soul, confronting it head-on it is the only path to personal and social harmony.

Every type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the Nine, the red flag is accommodation. This is the first warning sign that we’re losing connection with our own wants and needs for the sake of avoiding interpersonal conflicts.

In writing, this could look like following whatever our critique group or editor or beta readers suggest without a second thought (this turns the book into a knotty, inconsistent disaster). It could look like writing the genre you think your parents or partner would be proud of you for writing in rather than the one you feel most drawn to. It could look cutting out the cursing for characters who would 100% curse because you don’t want to upset readers or your grandmother. And sometimes it looks like not writing at all because protecting that time requires asserting your boundaries, and enforcing those almost always leads to conflict.   

However, you Peacemakers are natural storytellers because you see the complexity and richness of a situation. Your talk-style is “epic saga” as a result. Further proof of that can be found in some of your notable fellow Nines like George Lucas, Walt Disney, and Jim Henson. Talk about creating a complete and believable fictional universe!

Joseph Campbell, the first person to popularize the idea of the Hero’s Journey, is another interesting example of the Nine finding commonality in humanity.

And then, of course, there’s Harry Potter, whose superpower was literally the love flowing through him, who refused the call at every turn and just wanted to be surrounded by his friends and family outside of conflict, but who ultimately saved the day by allowing that powerful love he felt for humanity to push him into action to come into big-time conflict with the villain. And it took a LOT of pressure and no way out but through before he finally took the necessary action. Sound maybe a little familiar, Nines?

So, if you’re struggling to put the words down, see if any of these are running on loop in your head:

“Does anyone even care about this series?”

“If I stopped writing tomorrow, no one would care.”

“There’s no rush. I can finish that chapter when I feel like it later.”

“I want to include diversity, but I’m not going to do it right and everyone’s going to get mad at me.”

“I need a few more people’s opinions on the plot before I’m ready to write it.”

“I should drop this and write about a safer topic.”

“This isn’t really the genre I want to write, but it’ll make [whoever] happy.”

“I don’t know what any of these characters want.”  

“This is more effort than it’s worth.”

“What’s the point? The world won’t end if I don’t finish this.”

Each of these thoughts diminishes the importance of your voice or tells you that you don’t have the right to be heard. Sure, maybe you should run it through a sensitivity reader, but their word isn’t law. You could have two sensitivity readers who disagree, and then what? You’ll have to make the final call anyway. Own your voice. It’s just as important as everyone else’s.

Your words build bridges. They help opposing tribes see the other side of the argument. They heal wounds caused by separation. To say your stories don’t matter is, plain and simple, an egregious abdication of responsibility. No other type can do what you do the way you do it, and no other Nine has the personal experience you have that shapes your unique voice. Keeping it to yourself for fear of conflict is selfish. Will your books change the world? Maybe not. But they’ll change some people’s world, and those ripples add up.

Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.

It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated and connected to the work when we’re Peacemakers.

So, if you’re a Nine who’s struggling with motivation:

• Find a Nine role model who inspires you—George Lucas, Abraham Lincoln, Gloria Steinem, Audrey Hepburn, Barack Obama—and keep a picture of them on your desk or near you when you write. Let it be a reminder that they had the same self-doubts that you did and found the courage to speak anyway, and look at how it shaped the world.

• Set yourself a narrative challenge: how much chaos and conflict can you create in your story that you then resolve? Exercise your gift of peacemaking—I promise it’ll feel great.

• Ask yourself what in your life you’re saying yes to when you mean no, and see if you can rectify one of the situations. This will deepen your connection to yourself, and you can use that energy for your writing.

• Think about what stories you needed to read when you were younger—what do you wish someone had told you and encouraged in you? And then write those stories. (It doesn’t have to be children’s books or YA, either. The inner children of adult readers need to hear your wisdom, too.)

• Learn to recognize your body’s signals of yes and no. Your type is in the Gut triad, which means you experience the world through your body. Except, Peacemakers tend to detach from that to avoid the dreaded conflicts of life. Get back in touch with it through journaling and through paying attention to yourself when you make decisions to see how it feels. This will help you write characters who are more in touch with what they want.

• Remember that slow and steady is a perfectly good approach. Slow and unsteady is how you will lose steam, though. Fast and steady is how you will likely run out of steam. If you feel yourself slipping into the frantic fear energy of your stress number (Six), take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Extent the timeline. Your work doesn’t have to be urgent to be important, but you do need to keep at it if you want to publish it.

• Hit pause on listening to others’ suggestions for your work. You have enough voices in your head as it is without the input of everyone else. The answer you’re looking for is already in your mind. Take a moment to listen, then forge onward.

• Maintain a regular movement practice. This doesn’t have to be intense, but physical exercise is crucial to combating unhealthy lethargy and inspiring the kind of action you must take to reach your healthier levels of development. When you feel the sleepiness and apathy start to set in, evaluate your life critically. Are you actually lacking sleep, or would you benefit from elevating that heart rate and getting your blood pumping?

• Build a network of authors who value your voice and will remind you why it’s needed. External accountability might not make you write when you don’t feel like it, but it will help you keep track of how long it’s been since you’ve written, and that keeps weeks and months from slipping by unnoticed between writing sessions.

Now that we’ve covered the nine types, you might assume this series is over. NOT SO. These discussions have only scratched the surface by addressing a person’s dominant type, with a focus on average development levels.

Next week, we’re going to discuss further considerations and answer questions like, “Why do so many of these sound like me?” and “Why do I relate to most of the things you said about my type but not all?” and “These things used to describe me but don’t anymore. Have I changed types?”

Motivation: Type Eight, the Challenger

Of course no literary agent or publisher is going to tell you what to write. Just like how no editor is going to tell you what to change, and no one on your reader team is going to leave you less than a 5-star review and remain on the team for the next book release.

You’re an indie author because you don’t need other people. You’ve learned that time and time again in your life. Things are easier if you do them yourself, your way, and without so-called help from people who only make everything more complicated.

Sure, life feels like a struggle, but what do people expect? No pain, no glory. The world was built unfairly, so either go out and create your own justice or stop complaining.

Yes, publishing books is hard. Yes, marketing them is tough. Yes, you could really use a nap.

No, wait! That’s not what you meant to say! Naps are for the weak! And that’s definitely not you. You didn’t get to where you are by being weak. That’s not how you take from this life what you want.

If you’re pumping your fist and saying, “fuck yeah!” at this point, then you’re probably an Enneagram Type 8, the Challenger. I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you, friend. The bad news is that you’ve probably been making this indie publishing thing harder than it has to be. The good news is that you’re excellently prepared to take on the realistic challenges that do exist. But first, there might be a few mindset shifts you’ll could consider…

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.

Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Eight, “the Challenger.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build an empowering author life for ourselves if this is our type.

If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write strong Challenger characters, but I guarantee you have an Eight in your life, and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.

At their core, Eights’ desire is to protect themselves. Their fear is to be harmed and controlled by others. The concepts of power and vulnerability are central to the way the Eights relates to the world.

This fear and desire make you Eights natural born leaders, which is good, since you don’t enjoy following anyway. The world needs leaders like you, though, with your keen eye for power structures that are invisible to many others.

You’re not afraid of a fight, which is admirable, so long as there’s a legitimate fight to have. And when that’s not the case, but you don’t usually let that stop you from trying, do you?

If you’re an Eight, you’ve probably been called “difficult” or “stubborn” or “argumentative” a few times in your life (exaggeration of the year). When it comes time to argue for justice or to stand up for the little guy, you’re just the person for the job, but how is the other 90% of your life treating you? Is it the peaceful rest you need? Are you a pro at trusting that, in the words of your fellow Challenger Martin Luther King, Jr., “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”?

Don’t worry if that’s not the case, because the great news is that you can feel that way eventually! You can learn to trust a higher power (God, the Universe, whoever/whatever) without being harmed for it! It’s waiting for you along the path your type must walk toward health.

This need for justice and your inner call for strength in the face of tyranny is much needed in the literary world, and that’s something you will naturally inspire in your readers. Your stories can’t help but be about standing up for the little guy, showing tremendous power and fight when the odds are stacked against it, and brave leaders inspiring the same kind of drive in those they lead.

When I’m working with a Challenger who’s struggling with motivation (and this is surprisingly rare, thanks to the Eight’s natural aversion to showing weakness and asking for help), it’s usually because they are tired. They’re tired of the grind after doing themselves no favors and making everything more of a struggle than it needs to be. They’re tired of writing the books in solitude. They’re tired of dealing with needy readers. They’re tired of their marketing tactics falling flat every six months. And by the time an Eight is ready to admit they’re tired, you know it’s bad. They’re ready to say “I give up! You’re on your own, assholes!” and take off to be alone.

The key for the Eight is to understand that, yes, indie publishing is one challenge after another, but you’ve undoubtedly been making it twice as difficult for yourself out of a constant need to assert your power over each aspect. Delegating isn’t failure, and you will feel better when you have someone to lead toward a common goal.

For the sake of saving your energy for the important things, try to pick your battles with more discretion. For instance, crappy people are allowed to leave your book 1-star reviews. Is it an injustice that people with no stake in your book who were not the intended audience can leave drive-by 1-star reviews? Totally. But you don’t have to right that wrong. You can’t even if you try. Consider that those in the industry—readers, other authors, coaches—aren’t something to overcome but rather useful human resources that can make your journey easier and, god forbid, maybe a little fun.

Since power is so central to this type, it’s crucial that we discuss a couple of its various forms. In plain terms, an unhealthy Eight seeks power over others, and a healthy Eight aims to empower themselves and those around them. Meanwhile, an average Eight is in the process of losing their grip on their own sense of empowerment and seeking that need for power from external sources rather than reaching internally for it.

What a Challenger does in these average levels very much determines if they become a hero or a villain. Because while all types have the potential to get unhealthy, when someone with a natural fixation on power becomes unhealthy, it creates an especially frightening situation for those around them.

Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.

Below are descriptions of an Eight in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):

Healthy: Willing to confront danger for a greater purpose and lasting positive legacy, sees mercy and vulnerability as signs of strength, trusts that the universe “bends toward justice,” exhibits true self-confidence and stands up for themselves without going overboard, a natural leader who focuses on empowering followers for maximum effectiveness.

Average: Functions with extreme self-sufficiency and independence, begins denying own emotional needs, need for power and control shifts from self (empowerment) onto environment (power over), believes their word is law and needs to be boss, becomes forceful and scary to others, not afraid to use intimidation tactics to achieve their aims, projects adversarial relationships onto those who dare to be empowered, looks for obedience from others, and can create a self-fulfilling prophecy by forcing others to band together in opposition.

Unhealthy: Ruthless in any attempt to avoid being controlled, acts like a dictator, starts functioning contrary to laws and morality, willing to resort to violence, fantasies of invincibility, exhibits megalomania with emerging sociopathic tendencies, feels justified in and hungry for destruction of others, murderous.

Yeah, I know. I told you this much raw power could get scary. But if you’re a Challenger, you already know this on some level (don’t worry, random intrusive thoughts are normal for everyone).

If you’re not an Eight, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Eights can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.  

Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?

You’ll need to get real with yourself on this one thing: your impulse to exert power over others is a direct result of not feeling empowered in that moment. Reconnect with your inner power, and you’ll find you have less of a desire to exert it over others… and more of a desire to help others find their own inner power.

So, if you’re feeling unmotivated, it may be that you’ve abdicated some of your power to others. You’ve forgotten that you DO always have control of yourself, and the decision to sit down at the computer and push buttons to create story worlds is yours to make.

OR maybe you’re tired. Maybe you’re sad. Maybe there’s some human emotion you genuinely need to deal with and surrender to that you’re not letting yourself, and it’s got you all emotionally constipated. It’s hard to write when you’re in that state.

Emotions make themselves known one way or another, and if you’re ignoring that or trying to express them all as anger, your body, mind, and spirit will eventually hit a wall. It could manifest as physical exhaustion or a serious illness, but that emotion will be heard. So maybe, just maybe, it’s time to rest, listen, and surrender to the fact that you’re a human like the rest of us, and you feel those softer emotions of love, heartbreak, tenderness, grief, fear, and vulnerability. If you think you’re strong now, imagine how unstoppable you’ll be when you can do all the hard stuff while also feeling emotions!

Every type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the Eight, the red flag is forcefulness. This is the first warning sign that we’re losing connection with the power inside us and trying to regain the feeling of control by exerting power over our environment.

In our craft, this might look like trying to force the scene to work the way you outlined it rather than surrendering to your characters’ wills and letting things transpire naturally, then adjusting. Don’t forget that the whole creation—the characters, the events, the themes—are decided by you. It might not be your ego driving the action, but it’s all coming from somewhere inside you. Sometimes you must surrender to the muse. Remember, it doesn’t all have to feel like a struggle. Things can be easy and flow naturally without your willful assistance.

Creative Eights embody this example of surrender. After what we’ve talked about for Challengers, it may surprise you to learn that Toni Morrison was an Eight, as was Paul Newman. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Mae West were Eights as well.

Not everything is a struggle, but some things are. Mae West was fighting against all kinds of body and behavioral expectations for women, and it took every bit of her defiant Challenger attitude to keep it up. But better for the rest of us women that she did.

Oskar Schindler, another Eight, embodies the benevolent strength of the Eight when it comes time to defend those who need it. And Serena Williams shows us how a Challenger can soar to greatness despite, or perhaps because of, the immense opposition in her chosen arena. Her creativity is undeniable on the tennis court, as is her passion and power. And by doing what she’s done and in the unapologetic way she has, she’s inspired a whole generation of girls, especially black girls, to try out a sport that was, until recently, the domain of white men. Talk about challenging power structures!

So, if you’re struggling to put the words down, see if any of these are running on loop in your head:

“This is too easy.”

“I can’t get the story to do what I want it to.”

“I don’t need help with this.”

“My readers aren’t ready for this kind of a story.”

“I shouldn’t be tired yet.”

“I’ll write after I tell this person off.”

“I can’t write because my 9-5 boss is such a prick and won’t stop bugging me.”

“If my editor is going to question me like this, I should just find another editor.”

“I’ve dug deep before, so if that isn’t working this time, it’s because I’m not trying hard enough.”

“No pain, no gain. Work is supposed to hurt.”

Each of these thoughts rejects the signals your emotions are trying to send you and concocts external challenges where there aren’t any, pulling your focus away from what you can control and toward what you can’t control but will try to anyway.

This doesn’t have to be a struggle. You don’t have to fight against your environment all the time. You can take breaks (and must) without being “weak.” I’m telling you right now, a story where none of the main characters show basic emotions without being painted as weak will be a hard one to read and enjoy. You need to let the vast range of human emotions (yes, even the softer ones) flow through you to your characters, or else you could exhaust your readers.  

One of the most challenging emotions for an Eight to show is kindness, but when you do tap into that well, it’s a display of the purest form of power—the strength to be kind when one could easily be otherwise.

So run an experiment, I dare ya: show an act of kindness to yourself and see if you can survive it.

Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.

It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated and connected to the work when we’re Challengers.

So, if you’re an Eight who’s struggling with motivation:

• Use your writing to practice the art of surrender. Let your characters be who they are and stop trying to control them so closely. If the scene doesn’t want to bend to your will, see where it leads you, trusting that you’re still the one in control, because you are.

• When something feels like a struggle, ask yourself if it needs to be. It’s not weak to make the process of self-publishing easier on you, just like it’s not valiant or brave to make it harder than it has to be.

• Remind yourself of who your work will inspire simply because it came from someone as empowered as you. Empowerment is not a zero-sum game. There is an unlimited amount of it to go around, and you help it multiply just by showing up in your creative work as an empowered person.

• If your writing feels dull, maybe you’re not examining invisible power structures enough in it. Maybe you’re relying too heavily on tired examples of power and need to dig deeper and take a more nuanced approach. You know better than anyone that explicit power and implicit power are not always the same.

• You don’t have to be on guard all the time. Use your writing to challenge injustices, and then give yourself a break about it when you’re not writing. Rest can be an act of rebellion. Trust that there are other Eights out there taking shifts defending those who need it. Story changes more hearts and minds than force anyway.

• Create an emotions practice. What I mean is some special time and space where you check in with yourself and ask what you’re feeling. And then, you need to feel it, even though doing so might make you feel out of control. Your type is firmly planted in the Anger triad, which puts you in jeopardy of every emotion feeling like anger. But you need to unpack that and sort out the individual emotions to keep moving forward.

• People will try to exert power over you. If you’re always reacting to this, they’ve won. But if you begin to recognize your body’s sensations whenever this happens, you’ll learn to pause and remind yourself that you are the only one who can give your power away. This exercise will empower you and keep you focused on your story rather than throwing hands at every critic who comes your way.

• Build a network of authors you like, and don’t feel like you always need to lead. If you find yourself only networking with authors you believe are behind you in their career, it’s time to reel in your need to be in the power-up position. Network with people you believe know more than you do and who don’t need you to lead them. Then, you know, learn from them. There will come a time when they need your gifts in return, and you can provide them then. No need to force it.

Next week, we’ll discuss how to find you writing motivation if you’re a Type 9, the Peacemaker. This is the type of storytellers like Walt Disney, and George Lucas, as well as beloved characters like Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh.

Motivation: Type Seven, the Enthusiast

When you only have a hundred years to enjoy all the pleasures of the world, there’s no time to waste. So many great adventures to live! So many great stories to tell!

There are a thousand good books to read, countless dreamy destinations to visit, new restaurants every day, and new strangers to share a drink with to hear their stories. That’s not even mentioning all the great movies, recipes, and hobbies to try out. How is a person to decide how to spend their day?

Sure, enjoying the pleasurable things in life this much can lead to a perpetual state of FOMO (fear of missing out), but what else are you supposed to do, sit around bored? Think about all the tragedies in the world? Do mundane chores? Stick to your budget and say no the next time a friend asks you to dinner at that new place you’ve heard so much about?

Not a chance.

Oh, and somewhere in there, you’re supposed to write (and finish) books. Yes, even through the sticky parts of your revisions. And when you’re not sure what to write for the next scene but have this fabulous idea for a new series, what are you supposed to do then, make yourself miserable? No way. Not in this lifetime.

If you’re feeling a little called out right now, then you’re probably an Enneagram Type 7, the Enthusiast. Every writer experiences moments of flashy-object syndrome, but when you love life as much as you do and relish pleasant experiences to the extent you do, flashy-object syndrome and FOMO can become a chronic condition. But never fear, because there’s one important concept that can take all your passion and zest for life and turn it into a fruitful and enjoyable career.

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.

Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Seven, “the Enthusiast.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build a thrilling author life for ourselves if this is our type.

If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write strong Enthusiast characters, but I guarantee you have a Seven in your life, and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.

At their core, Sevens’ desire is to be satisfied. Their fear is to be dissatisfied and deprived or stuck in pain. The concepts of options and enjoyment are central to the way the Seven relates to the world.

 Sevens bring a great optimism to the world because they see the possibility in everything. Whereas certain other types view things through a lens of threat or lack, Sevens, with their rose-colored glasses, see the world in terms of pleasure (and have an intentional blind spot for pain). They see what is to be gained, gained, gained.

But it’s a thin line between running toward things and running away from things, and while the Enthusiast appears to be focused on the positive, the first sign of potential pain can send them running (toward something that promises a pleasurable escape).

You might see how this can trip them up in their writing. Though the talk style of the Seven is literally “storytelling,” part of the appeal is the instant gratification of telling that story to another person and getting immediate feedback. This is not a mechanism naturally built into the process of writing a book, and the delayed gratification can prove frustrating, feel like deprivation, and send a Seven seeking that gratification away from the keyboard.  

While not every Seven is an extrovert, every Seven craves frequent positive feedback. If you’re an introvert, this could be from an online community or in a small-group or one-on-one setting. If you’re an extrovert, this might look like book signings, panels, and live online events. And if your WIP is proving tricky or frustrating, expect a lot more of these events to magically appear on that schedule.

It’s not all avoidant behavior for Sevens, though. When Enthusiasts can channel their namesake enthusiasm into a single project and bring that project to completion, the excitement is contagious!

When I’m working with an Enthusiast who’s struggling with motivation, it’s usually because the book has stopped being fun. For a Seven, “not fun” could either mean boring or painful. The problem, of course, is that the human need to pursue mastery means the writing process must either challenge us in new ways that force growth and transformation (a naturally painful process) or we will grow bored of it. Humans require a challenge to stay engaged.

So the key for the Seven is to become aware of this pattern and commit to doing what they do best: finding joy even in the difficult times. Engagement, after all, either requires a deeper challenge to an existing project or a fresh project.

In the end, it comes down to attention.

You’ve probably heard of the concept of “flow.” One of the things that stood out to me in the landmark book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the crucial difference between pleasure and enjoyment. Learning this distinction is the turning point for an Enthusiast.

We all know what pleasure is. It’s indulging at your favorite restaurant, it’s diving into a cold pool on a hot day, it’s listening to your favorite band.

What takes it from pleasure to enjoyment, then? Simple: focused attention. Venting to your friend over wine might be pleasurable, but closing your eyes and focusing on each of the tastes as they hit your tongue, recalling what you learned at that wine-tasting class last month, is enjoyment. Floating on your back in the cool water and focusing on the warmth of the sun on your front and the chill of the water on your back while you practice deep breathing is enjoyment. Attending a concert from your favorite band without bringing out your phone to film or posting it on social media is enjoyment.

Writing the opening chapter to a new series might be pleasurable, but losing yourself in the messy middle, tinkering with the plot until it clicks into place, diving deep into your characters so that your skills increase with each book you publish, that is how you enjoy writing.  

And that hard-earned enjoyment alchemizes the pain of the process into a rich and satisfying pleasure down the line—exactly what you lovely Enthusiasts desire. You are no longer running from the pain but rather learning to experience it so that the highs are that much higher.

Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.

Below are descriptions of a Seven in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):

Healthy: Able to process deep and complicated experiences, feels gratitude and appreciation for the things in their life, enjoys the simple wonders of the world, enthusiastic about a wide range of experiences, confidence in resilience allows for spontaneity (not impulsiveness), focus allows for great achievements, vivacity leads to accomplishments in many areas.

Average: Increasing restlessness threatens focus, starts looking for more and more options, variety and pleasure begin to take precedent over depth and richness, loses sight of priorities as hyperactivity takes over, impulsive, craves to be life of the party through exaggerated storytelling and performing, becomes a spring of ideas with no follow-through, overconsumes and prone to a variety of excesses, unable to feel satisfied, gluttonous.

Unhealthy: Lacks impulse control, governed entirely by selfish pleasure seeking, loses control of pleasure-pain balance and falls into addictions, cannot face basic discomfort of daily life, flees responsibility, becomes erratic and compulsive, eventually runs out of energy and crashes and burns in panic and despair.

If you’re not a Seven, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Sevens can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.  

Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?

It’s important to think of focus as a muscle. Some activities strengthen it, and some cause inflammation that weakens your performance. If you haven’t read a book in a year, it’s unlikely that you’ll read the whole thing in a sitting without wandering off to do something else, no matter how good the story is. And if you’ve only written 500 words a day three times a week for the last year, you’re not going to suddenly have the stamina to switch to 3000 words a day seven days a week. Sorry. Focus isn’t a matter of “will power” like some will tell you. (Ah, if only it were possible to will our brains to produce the serotonin we craved in the winter!)

And as with working out and building muscle, there’s a psychological component to it. You must become aware of (i.e. notice) when your focus is slipping. That’s a sign you’re disconnecting from the story, and that moment of disconnection is your first clue about what’s up.

Ask yourself: Is this a particularly painful scene to write? Are you struggling to know what to write next? Do you legitimately need a break or to wrap for the day? OR do you need to pause, take a few deep breaths, remember how satisfying this scene will be for the reader, and then carry on enjoying that experience?

 In short, learn to recognize that first twinge of dissatisfaction and hit pause long enough to explore it. That way, you’re responding rather than reacting.

Every type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the Seven, the red flag is restlessness. Some might call it FOMO. It’s when you disconnect from the potential enjoyment of the present (breaking focus) to think about what other possibilities you might be missing instead.

The truth is that you’re always missing out on something, but if you split your focus and never home in on what you already have before you, you’ll miss out on enjoying everything and be condemned to a series of pleasurable but shallow, distracted, and ultimately unsatisfying experiences.

Sevens who learn to hone their focus can accomplish incredible things. The current President of the United States, Joe Biden, is a Seven who’s conquered the Enthusiast’s worst nightmare of unimaginable grief to come out focused and committed enough to remain in political office for decades. Whatever your political opinion of him, when you realize he’s a Seven and you look at the things he’s endured in his life and the wisdom he’s pulled from the pain, it’s hard not to respect him for the way he’s risen to that challenge rather than letting it destroy him.

You Enthusiasts don’t have to take things seriously to have success, though. There are all kinds of famous comedians who took their natural gifts of joy and cheer and focused that on entertainment. Joan Rivers, Robin Williams, Mike Meyers, Miley Cyrus, Elton John—all Sevens who have brought immeasurable joy to their fans, but only because they committed themselves to becoming masters of their craft. Federico Fellini and Steven Spielberg (also Enthusiasts) had stories to tell, and many of those stories took years and years from idea to completion. It’s not impossible for Sevens. You of all types have the enthusiasm and optimism to carry you through, but you must commit to building that focus and adopting mindfulness practices to check in when that restlessness hits.

So, if you’re struggling to put the words down, see if any of these are running on loop in your head:

“This is boring.”

“I need to find weekend plans.”

“Ugh, this story is getting too heavy.”

“This isn’t fun anymore.”

“That other idea is more promising. I should start on that one instead.”

“Where should I go for dinner tonight?”

“I’d rather be [literally any other activity].”

“Writing should be fun and easy and this isn’t.”

“What am I going to do on my upcoming vacation?”

“I wonder what so-and-so is up to.”

“I should take a picture of myself working and post it to social media.”

“Maybe I’ll be in the mood for writing later, but for now, I want to grab brunch somewhere.”

 Each of these thoughts pulls you away from the present experience of writing and draws your attention toward escape and stimulation. But both of those things can be found without getting out of your chair if you shift your focus back to your story!

 I’m not trying to deprive you here. Instead, I’m showing you that the wealth you seek is already inside you. It’s not to be found in bougie pancakes and bottomless mimosas (okay, sometimes it is). Reroute those pathways. Work the muscles of delayed gratification. Cut out the unhealthy behaviors that dull the strength of your focus. 

Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.

It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated and connected to the work when we’re Enthusiasts.

So, if you’re a Seven who’s struggling with motivation:

• Sorry, but you gotta cut back on the social media. Fast for 30 days if you can. Then use an app like Freedom to limit when you can access those sites. The instant dopamine hits available through social media (especially TikTok) are bad for everyone, but are especially toxic for your type. And the FOMO of apps like Instagram will drag you down your development levels faster than you can say “hashtag.”

• Treat focus like a muscle. Eliminate distractions in your writing environment as best you can and use a timer to work in sprints. Start small if you have to with 5- or ten-minute sprints for a few weeks. When those start to feel too short or the timer goes off without you noticing it, move to longer increments. But just like with physical exercise, it’s not a constant step forward. Don’t be discouraged if lack of sleep, life circumstance, hormones, or illness make it harder for you to focus today than it was the week before.

• Take a couple of minutes to visualize the scene you’re about to write, focusing on the most exciting moments in it that you can’t wait to write. Even the dark night of the soul will have something that you can’t wait to try out, so give yourself a moment to locate it. If you find you can’t locate anything exciting about the next scene, maybe you need to spice it up!

• It’s okay to work on multiple series at a time. It’s probably ideal for you, honestly. But try to limit yourself to two or three, and ask yourself if you’re switching between them because you’re running from something unpleasant in one or because it makes sense for you to take a break and work on the other.

• Pleasure isn’t the path to satisfaction, but enjoyment is. Enjoyment is deep engagement with the present, and you’ll find that the present has everything you need to feel contented if you dig deep enough in it.

• Absolutely do hands-on research for your novels, and use your enjoyable experiences to enhance your stories. Is your protagonist at a trendy diner on a first date? Schedule time to visit a trendy diner, and as you eat your meal there, focus in on everything you can about it. Go ahead, close your eyes, separate out each flavor, committing it to memory. Not only will you create an enjoyable experience when you do your “research,” but you’ll reactivate that memory in your writing. The same goes for travel. Build it into your process, because life’s too short to only write!

• Pay attention to the moments when you feel JOMO (joy of missing out). This might be skipping a night out with friends to stay home and read a book on the couch with your dog snoozing at your feet. It might look like leaving the gathering early so you can feel rested and ready to write the next morning. JOMO is a product of connecting to yourself in the present; FOMO is the opposite.

• Build relationships with other authors who enjoy the same things as you do outside of writing. If you’re really into sailing, plan a beach retreat with those authors that combines writing with the activity you love. And be sure to schedule dedicated writing hours for everyone, so you can easily focus without wondering if you’re missing out on conversations.  

Next week, we’ll discuss how to find you writing motivation if you’re a Type 8, the Challenger. This is the type of intense creatives like Mae West and Clint Eastwood, as well as hard-hitting characters like Katniss Everdeen and Othello.

Motivation: Type Six, the Loyalist

Relax? Why on earth would you relax in a situation like this? Anyone who’s relaxed must be sleep or brain dead. Only through constant vigilance can you proceed intelligently in an industry as fickle as indie publishing!

After all, your next book could be the one that sinks your career. There’s no way of knowing what people will take issue with, so the only thing to do is make as many allies as you can in the business. And then hire some sensitivity readers. And then keep your launch somewhat quiet, because a big launch is the best way to get a target on your back. You know there are authors who send their readers after other authors to one-star review bomb their new release. You’ll do whatever it takes to avoid that fate!

Oh god, this is exhausting. There are too many dangers to consider. Screw it! Time to be courageous! Just hit publish and be done with it! Who cares if you don’t have any launch plans!

If you’re feeling a little called out right now, then you’re probably an Enneagram Type 6, the Loyalist. Every creative has concerns and anxiety about releasing their work into the world, but your type can make overthinking what could go wrong an absolute art. But don’t worry, (that can be tricky, I know), because your type can also be a beacon of courage for all other types. Keep reading to learn how.

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

Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Six, “the Loyalist.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build an empowered author life for ourselves if this is our type.

If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write strong Loyalist characters, but I guarantee you have a Six in your life, and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.

At their core, Sixes’ desire is to be supported. Their fear is that they’re unsupported and lacking guidance. The concepts of trust and courage are central to the way the Six relates to the world.

Of all the types, Sixes have the most fraught relationship with authority. Because they are fear-focused (they’re in the “fear” triad of the Enneagram, and their unique passion is also “fear”), they crave a protective authority figure to guide and protect them. But because they are fear-focused, they don’t trust authority figures. You can see how much of a pickle this puts them in.

The crux of this problem is that the Six is looking externally for authority in these situations, and this results from their rejection of inner authority. But as Loyalists move to healthier levels of development, they tap into a deep well of inner authority and begin to trust that all the clarity they need can be found in themselves. They learn to trust their instincts.

In the meantime, though, Loyalists can struggle with indecision as all the possible threats to their best-laid plans appear obvious to them at all times.

The trouble with talking about Sixes is that this fear at the core of the type presents in two starkly different ways. Loyalists can be phobic or counter-phobic.

Most people know of the fight/flight/freeze/flop/fawn responses to a threat. Fight is to attack the threat, flight is to run away, freeze is being caught in indecision and not acting, flop is to submit to the threat, and fawn is an attempt to ingratiate oneself to the threat. These are all possible responses of a Six, but the first one—fight—is the typical counter-phobic response we might see.

Contrary to what our society might tell us, the counter-phobic response isn’t more courageous or admirable than any of the others. That’s because it’s still reaction to fear rather than a response made out of a sense of inner authority and a faith that the universe is, generally speaking, on one’s side. But this counter-phobic response tends to get more praise from others, even though it is usually a reckless reaction rather than a reasonable response.

The phobic response catches much more flack. This looks like retreat, like indecision, and like behind-the-scenes manipulations of others to increase one’s own safety through social standing.

It’s not uncommon, though, for a Six who is usually phobic to reach a breaking point. They can no longer stand the endless voices in their head pointing out every way it could go wrong, and they no longer have the energy to stay small. In this case, that creative energy that’s been repressed can explode in a reckless counter-phobic act, which in our industry usually looks like publishing a book before it’s ready and before there’s a plan in place for its success.

But don’t worry, because it’s not all bad news for a Loyalist. Once you embrace that inner authority, your leadership and courage can’t help but show—after all, there’s no courage without fear.

When I’m working with a Loyalist who’s struggling with motivation, it’s usually because they’ve rejected their inner authority and have lost faith that things can work out, going so far as to feel like the entire universe is against them. They believe that they don’t know the next best move, and that no matter what they do next, it won’t work out in their favor. This pessimism, as it turns out, has nothing to do with reality and is only a sneak way for anxiety to present itself.

As you might imagine, it can be tricky to consult with you Sixes when you’ve stopped trusting yourself but also can’t trust any outside authority, even as you seek it out. My suggestions are either accepted blindly or shot down immediately. Don’t worry, though; I don’t take it personally.  

If you’re a Loyalist, you’d do well to incorporate as many practices as you can into your daily routine that lower your heart rate and tone your vagus nerve. This is because fear, that thing you do so well, activates your sympathetic nervous system, and once that’s triggered, everything in life is harder and burns more fuel. Your aim at the start of each day should be to relax your sympathetic nervous system and engage your parasympathetic nervous system. Doing this will free up much needed mental bandwidth to make smarter decisions by accessing your inner clarity. Enough of these smart decisions, and you might just begin to believe the universe is working with you rather than against you!

Why might fear hinder your creative practices, some might wonder? The answer is simple: creativity requires risk. As soon as you release a book, you’re surrendering your baby to the world. Holding back during the production of it is poison to your creative process.

Once those muscles in your shoulders and face start tightening and you stop trusting your inner authority, making creative decisions that best serve your story becomes nearly impossible. This might look like not being able to choose how to end the book or even what to write in the next line of dialogue. It takes the process away from that inner fountain and turns it into a decision by committee. And if we’ve learned anything from the US House of Representatives and Senate, it’s that the more people are involved in a decision, the less likely even basic common-sense decisions are to ever be made.

The Loyalists who make the biggest impact are those who learn to trust their instincts. They value courage and embody it through their faith that their instincts won’t lead them wrong in their pursuit for something meaningful. Those Sixes aren’t afraid of risk because they understand that everything carries risk, there’s no such thing as 100% secure (thanks, random meteors!), and that in the end, courage is more valuable than trying to live forever.

Trusting one’s instincts isn’t an overnight process, and sometimes we think we’re listening to our inner clarity, but it’s just our fear throwing its voice. But if you’re a Loyalist who’s tired of being trapped in indecision, it might be time to practice this new approach of self-trust in small, low-stakes environments (like how all trust is built).

Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.

Below are descriptions of a Six in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):

Healthy: Trusting of self and others, courageous, highly cooperative while maintaining independence, has a positive mindset, not afraid of being a leader, forms strong relationships with others, shows deep support for movements and individuals they care about, naturally builds and fosters healthy communities that create stability and security for others.   

Average: Bases decisions on safest option rather than most impactful or courageous, seeks security through alliances, seeks protective external authority, functions in a state of hyper-vigilance, indecisive and anxious, absence of substantial guiding values leads to unpredictable actions and outcomes, sarcasm as self-protection, begins dividing people into friends and enemies, approaches every new experience/person/situation with suspicion, prone to authoritarian beliefs while being suspicious of all authority, projects undesired parts of self onto others.  

Unhealthy: Suspicion turns to paranoia, volatile as they switch rapidly between flight and flight, adopts radical beliefs to find footing and security, feelings of persecution or that everyone is out to get them validate their urge to lash out, can become hysterical and turn to self-destructive numbing behaviors, irrationality and volatility bring about the things they fear.

If you’re not a Six, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Sixes can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.  

Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?

Let go. Just loosen the reins a little bit, at least in the creation process. There is no threat in a shitty or bold first draft. There is no threat in revisions. There’s really no threat in publishing, either.

You’re an indie. Stop looking outward for authority. Your readers are the only gatekeepers, and no matter what you write, there will be readers for it. The only thing that can stop you is… fear. But when you choose courage instead, when you accept that you’ll always feel a little afraid but choose to do it anyway because your inner guidance tells you to, you’re unstoppable.

I’ve been around this industry for a while and have seen people try to “cancel” indie authors many times. I have great news: it’s impossible to do. You can’t cancel a human being, you can only bully them. And every time someone bullies you is an opportunity to show them they can’t control what you do. Fuck ‘em. They ain’t the boss of you. So long as you tap into that courage and allow your inner authority to take precedence, there are ways forward to pursue this passion and reach the readers who need your stories. Period.

If Frodo could make it all the way to the heart of Mordor, you can keep hitting publish and finding new fans.

Every type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the Six, the red flag is seeking external security. This is a game with no finish line because you could always make yourself more invisible and inconsequential to eke out just a little more safety… and yet, you can never be 100% secure. So maybe you decide to play it safe and never publish another word. You could still be hit by a bus while strolling down a sidewalk. Game over either way. What do you want to do in the meantime?

The problem with seeking external security (and this can be social or physical security) is that the action necessarily betrays our inner authority. That self-betrayal leaves a Six reeling, and they begin to project the emotion onto everyone else in a subconscious pattern of: you will betray me, and so will you, and you! How do I know this? Because even I betrayed me!

Sixes who’ve accepted the natural risk of living and who defend their inner authority create inspirational works that leave readers moved and inspired. The most quintessential example of this is J.R.R. Tolkien and his stories from Middle Earth. You might notice a commonality between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings: a small, vulnerable creature chooses to leave the safety of his village to confront unknown and unfathomable danger for the sake and safety of the collective.

You don’t get much more Loyalist of a story than that.

And perhaps there is no better example of trusting one’s inner authority above that of the external world (i.e. society) than Mark Twain, another strong example of a Six. Writing down the iconoclastic ideas that he did and publishing them in the time when he did took repeated acts of courage, but as if often the case with the boldest written words, those ideas changed hearts and minds. I would guess it’s the reason schools keep assigning Adventures of Huckleberry Finn despite the egregious racial slurs and stereotypes; in the context of the time, the story took serious cojones to publish.   

Need another example of the sheer guts that a Six can access when they’ve chosen to trust themselves? How about Malcolm X? His writings challenge the authority structures of our society and will continue to for generations to come, I suspect.   

So, if you’re struggling to put the words down, see if any of these are running on loop in your head:

“I don’t know what should happen next.”

“I need to read one more plotting book before I’m ready.”

“I can’t write that! They’d crucify me!”

“I should play it safe and stick to the genres I’m used to.”

“I should wait to write the next scene until I talk to my writing coach.”

“No matter what I write, this book is going to flop.”

“What if I [normal writing action] and then [catastrophe happens]?”

“If I can think of all the worst-case scenarios, then I can avoid them.”

“I need feedback from a few more people before I can be sure this is the best approach.”

“I’ve taken too long between releases and all of my readers have abandoned me.”

“How can I write when the world is on fire?”

These stifling thoughts will begin to fade when you remember that there is no sure thing in this world, no matter what you do, and that you always have the choice to do the brave thing. No matter how anxious you are, remember that there is someone out there who needs to see your courageous example. You could change the trajectory of their life not by being unafraid, but by accepting your fear and doing the meaningful thing anyway. When your deep wisdom and inner authority speak to you, it’s time to set fear aside and do as they say. No matter the consequences, you won’t regret it.

Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.

It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated and connected to the work when we’re Loyalists.

So, if you’re a Six who’s struggling with motivation:

• Develop meditative practices that activate your parasympathetic nervous system and connect you to your inner authority. Journaling, meditation, a walk through nature, tarot, yoga—these are all great places to start. Do them prior to your writing time.

• Unlike real life, writing allows for revisions. That makes it a perfect low-stakes place to practice trusting your instincts. See where they lead you, and if that’s somewhere different from the last plotting book you read, that is A-OK! Keep going!

• Summon to mind the child you use to be. At some point, they learned not to trust themself and to listen to an untrustworthy authority instead. Show courage for that child who was too vulnerable to do it, and remember that there are all kinds of people who learned this same thing and will have their world changed by your brave example.

• Bad news: you won’t live forever, no matter how safely you live. But through courage and trusting yourself, you can be remembered and felt for generations by making the world a safer and braver place.

• There is no right or safe way to write a book. If you want to play it safe, you should stop writing immediately. Yeah, never again. It’s the only way. What’s that you say? Your head would explode? Perfect. Then accept that writing is risky, but you can’t not do it. Start from there, and remind yourself of this when you have to. (Put it on a sticky note on your computer, if you must!)  

• Write stories that will change lives. Make the stakes for not writing higher than those for writing. Danger for the sake of it is a pathological disfunction, but danger for a greater purpose is just called “courage.” And you have lots of it in there.

• Almost all betrayal is a matter of perception. If you’re expecting others to betray themselves to stay true to you, then you’re expecting too much and creating self-fulfilling prophecies.

• If others expect you to betray your creative vision and your inner authority to stay loyal to them (this includes editors, coaches, beta readers, cowriters, and advance readers), then they may not currently be the right person to collaborate with. Don’t keep deferring to them; let them go.

• Build relationships with other authors and create common causes for you to work toward. This could be an anthology, a charity, or even co-writing. As you do, continue to choose to do the brave thing by offering your collaborators the benefit of the doubt rather than slipping immediately into suspicion when conflict arises.

Next week, we’ll discuss how to find you writing motivation if you’re a Type 7, the Enthusiast. This is the type of creatives like Elton John and Miley Cyrus, as well as beloved characters Fred & George Weasley and Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place.

Motivation: Type Five, the Investigator

You know it all must make sense somehow. Your gap in knowledge is simply a gap in information. Maybe if you study it some more, you’ll be the one to make the connection, to extract the knowledge that was missing.

But if you’re going to do that, you need the time and space for it. You must gather and collect your energy, hold onto it tight, and focus it all on this problem. Feelings? No, those won’t help. Box those up, please!

Next thing you know, you’re an expert on the matter, and doesn’t that feel good? Now, do you share your knowledge? The last time you did, some idiot came and challenged it, and you weren’t there to have a discussion, you were there to teach. You’re the expert, after all. Why invite you just to insult you?

There’s one thing you know for sure about yourself, and it’s that you can figure out anything that you put your mind to. The tougher the problem, the more you detach from it emotionally and retreat into your mind.

And then one day, you look around and wonder where your friends went. Ah, well, they probably couldn’t keep up.

If you didn’t like reading any of that and seeing that part of you put into words, then you’re probably an Enneagram Type 5, the Investigator. The above example is delivered tongue in cheek (the way you like it), so don’t take it too hard. The stereotype of the Five as a big floating head is just that: a stereotype. There’s so much more to you, but if you currently feel a little trapped in that brain of yours, keep reading!

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.

Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Five, “the Investigator.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build a multidimensional author life for ourselves if this is our type.

If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write strong Individualist characters, but I guarantee you have a Five in your life, and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.

At their core, Fives’ desire is to be competent. Their fear is that they’re incompetent. The concepts of knowledge, learning, and self-sufficiency are central to the way the Five relates to the world.

The relationship between knowledge and learning is a complex one, and it’s in these details that Fives can entrap themselves. Knowledge is a virtue. The desire to learn is a virtue. But believing one must know to be competent is the quickest way to stop learning in its tracks.

It’s not the need to know but the need to already know that begins to pull Fives into the dangerous pattern of isolation and withdrawal that severs their connection from the world and from themselves. And this stems from the fear that if they do not already know, they are not yet competent.

A Five who hitches their wagon to an identity of being a learner not a knower is one who stands a chance of living a life in the healthier levels of their Enneagram type.

However, we always need to tread lightly when it comes to our personal identity and ego. That tired phrase about eggs and baskets applies in this case, and Investigators who build their entire identity around their intellect become overly sensitive to even the most basic constructive criticism, which is obviously not conducive to that value of learning.

A Five who has put too much stock in their intellect while ignoring their feelings can become stingy with their ideas and knowledge for fear of that criticism, and you can probably imagine how this begins to stifle the creative process. It looks like withdrawing even further into the mind and living in a world of thought without feeling or doing. To feel more powerful and self-sufficient, the Five withholds the knowledge from the world rather than sharing it, and the flow of information is stifled until it dies.

When I’m working with an Investigator who’s struggling with motivation, it’s usually because they’ve stopped trusting the natural flow of energy around them. Their need for self-sufficiency and competence has made them hold onto more of that energy than they need and not share it as they should. They’re practicing detachment from the world (severing the connection and taking more of an outsider’s view) rather than non-attachment (trusting that restorative and loving energy always flows in and out as needed).

Detachment severs connection not just to others, but to parts of ourselves. For Fives, it can take the form of compartmentalization. Head and heart function separately from one another, and Investigators tend to neglect the latter entirely. Even parts of a person’s life and history can be severed through compartmentalization—happy memories, trauma, past relationships, etc.

And why would that stifle creativity? To create something new, to innovate, one must lay out all the tools and resources one has access to and find new connections. By compartmentalizing, a Five is diminishing their items to choose from and may end up stuck in the realm of dusty old ideas.

The Investigators who make the biggest impact are those who don’t limit themselves to a few intellectual pursuits. They’re well-read across many subjects, not just the ones they wish to become “experts” in. They pull ideas from all sorts of places to contribute to their understanding of their chosen pursuit, and through that process come up with new ideas that seem obvious and elegant once explained. Scientists read about the humanities, artists read about the stock market.

So, if you want to leave a creative legacy like fellow Fives Albert Einstein, Alfred Hitchcock, Annie Leibovitz, and Werner Herzog, a broad range of learning is your friend.  

Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.

Below are descriptions of a Five in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy)

Healthy: Visionary, open-minded, finds fresh ways to view the world, possesses extreme perceptiveness and insight, curious and eager to learn, focused and easily engrossed in a subject, strong skills of prediction.

Average: Leans heavily on conceptualizing, insists on preparing ideas completely before sharing them with others, more concerned with their own views and interpretations than reality, detaches and compartmentalizes knowledge, antagonistic to protect inner world, becomes a provocateur instead of an innovator, takes up extreme or radical views.

Unhealthy: Retreats into isolation, adopts a nihilistic view of reality, need to know ferments into a focus on the arcane or a disturbing reality no one else understands, obsessed with threatening ideas, horrified of the world, prone to a psychotic break from reality and self-destruction.  

If you’re not a Five, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Fives can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.  

Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to trust.

Trust yourself. You don’t have to know things to write about them. The beauty of fiction is that it’s a playground for us to experiment with and explore new ideas we haven’t completely fleshed out. And in writing those down and publishing them, we share what knowledge we’ve gained in the process and encourage others to develop the ideas even further. Trust that your emotions have something important to contribute as well.

 Trust others. You may not be the person to have the break-through you’ve been seeking. The good news is that you don’t have to be. Trust that other people will bring fresh perspective to the ideas you’ve been developing, and maybe by sharing with them, you’ve just opened it up to the missing piece that they can add. Greater understanding is the goal, right? It doesn’t matter whose ego gets to claim that final piece of the puzzle.

Trust the universe. This one is the hardest. Some people call it faith, but because there’s no scientific proof that a benevolent invisible force exists, it can be tricky for some Fives to “let go and let God.” No problem, honestly. Faith doesn’t require religion. But the lack of faith or lack of trust in the universe/humanity leads straight to a scarcity mindset, and this is where we hold on to more than we need out of fear that our needs won’t be met otherwise. Our sympathetic nervous system runs on overdrive when we live our lives this way (this means lots of fight/flight/freeze/fawn), and it leads to—surprise!—us running on empty and at a lack later on (as well as various health issues). So, for the sake of your nervous system, run a little experiment: see if everything falls apart if you loosen your grip on your time and energy. Go connect with the world instead of observing it. You may find that the connection gives more energy than it takes.

You have a mind, yes (and it’s a good one!), but you also have a body and emotions. Give those a spin. Will you feel tired afterwards? Yes! But that could be because your emotions and body have been underworked and need to get back in shape. Sleep can fix that problem for you, so it’s only temporary.

The Enneagram Spectrum of Personality Styles says something so profound about the Five that I’m just going to share the quote directly: “being known, seen, and revealed (transparent) is just as vital as knowing, seeing, and revealing.”

If you’ve spent a lot of time alone and feel the motivation waning, there’s an easy fix. Go connect with the world and let it see and know you.  

Then come back and write stories with that lived experience enhancing your understanding. Write probing stories on topics you’re still struggling to understand. Write stories that challenge the intellects of others without positioning yourself as the expert. Ask the important questions. Expose your readers to the vast array of subjects you’ve explored. Learn to admit it when you don’t know.

Every type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the Five, the red flag is conceptualizing. This is the first sign of detachment, and usually signals it’s time to gets one’s hands messy in the real world.

The problem with conceptualizing is that it’s a form of withdrawal, and withdrawal of any kind is a severing of connection to self and others (conceptualizing just happens to be a Five’s poison of choice). Once this disconnection starts, let the slide toward unhealthiness begin!

It's easy to spot an Investigator writer when you read them because their work is necessarily challenging. And when the Five has integrated their intellect with their emotions and intuition, watch out, because you don’t stand a chance against it. You’ll be transported and educated, whether you want to or not.

Fives who’ve stopped compartmentalizing can be incredibly compelling communicators. The works of Ursula K. LeGuin, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, and Eckhard Tolle are solid examples of writing that engages both intellectually and emotionally. And Gary Larson, creator of “The Far Side” comics, is a prime example of how a Five can boil down a concept into one clever or pithy phrase or idea. (I wallpapered one of my bedroom walls with The Far Side comics back in high school, and most things in life still remind me of the comics.)

So, if you’re struggling to put the words down or feel like you’re using the same tired ideas over and over again, see if any of these are running on loop in your head:

“This will go over their heads anyway.”

“I’m not ready to write on this topic yet.”

“They don’t deserve this effort from me.”

“I just feel like I’m giving a lecture.”

“If I don’t publish faster, I won’t be able to pay my bills.”

“I don’t trust my editor to catch what she needs to.”

“I know everything there is on this subject, so it’s boring to me now.”

“The success of this is all up to me.”

“I’m not done thinking about this.”

“The world isn’t ready for this yet.”

All of these stifling ideas can be cured by treating your stories as part of the learning process. Through your fiction quest is where you find the elixir in the underworld of your hero’s journey.

Take your need to know out of the hands of your ego and hold it up as a valiant pursuit, something you dedicate yourself to act toward each day. There is no finish line, but that’s okay, because you enjoy running this race. You were built for it.

Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.

It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated and connected to the work when we’re Investigators.

So, if you’re a Five who’s struggling with motivation:

• Shift your identity from a knowledgeable person to a seeker of knowledge.

• Ask yourself how you can share what knowledge you’ve gained with those around you on a daily basis. (If there’s no one around you, then leave the house and find people.)

• Learn about emotions! Gifting yourself with the vocabulary is the first step to accessing those things you’ve wasted so much energy keeping at bay.  

• Read, read, read. Read broadly and deeply. You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting yourself. Build off the backs of thinkers who’ve come before you. (Don’t forget to share what you’ve learned!)

• Keep an eye out for scarcity mindset, and incorporate daily practices that remind you of the natural flow of energy in the universe (meditation, journaling, stimulating conversation, walks in nature, etc.)

• Ask for help. The reason this is so hard is that somewhere along the way you learned that self-sufficient and competent people didn’t need help. But that notion has been disproven time and time again. No one has ever done it all on their own. Collaboration is the truest pursuit of knowledge and understanding, not isolation.

• Build relationships with other authors, and relax into the exchange of information. Strong boundaries eliminate the need for isolation, so practice those, but don’t be afraid to share what you know and ask what others know.  

Next week, we’ll discuss how to find you writing motivation if you’re a Type 6, the Loyalist. This is the type of J.R.R. Tolkien, John Grisham, Eleanor Dashwood (Sense and Sensibility), and Hamlet.

Motivation: Type Four, the Individualist

You feel a deep, persistent longing. Sometimes it’s for another person, sometimes a place, sometimes a lifestyle, sometimes even a bygone era. When people try to describe it, they don’t even come close. Hell, you often fall short when you try to put words to it. It’s like you have a vastness inside you that’s trying to connect with the vastness outside of you but never quite reaches.

So, you try to express it through fiction, maybe a little poetry. But no one quite gets it when they read your words. You have a sneaking suspicion that even if you finally got the words right to express yourself precisely, people still wouldn’t understand.

Part of you likes that. The fear of being understood, of being comprehensible to others shakes you at an existential level. Only once your full being is understood can your full being be rejected.

And part of you hates being so different. There’s nothing lonelier than feeling like no one could ever connect with you fully.

If you didn’t like reading any of that and seeing that part of you put into words, then you’re probably an Enneagram Type 4, the Individualist. It’s not all somber news for you, though of all the types, yours would be the most okay with it if that were the case.

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.

Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Four, “the Individualist.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build a rich and abundant author life for ourselves if this is our type.

If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write strong Individualist characters, but I guarantee you have a Four close to you, and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.

At their core, Fours’ desire is to have significance. Their fear is that they’re insignificant. The concept of significance or identity is central to what compels or repels Fours.

Indie publishing can be a perilous landscape for Fours, who are so full of this raw urge to create the beautiful and portray the ugly that accepting payment for such a natural act can feel dirty. Humans are made to create and express, so how would capitalism do anything but cheapen the experience?

“Marketability” is also considered a taboo subject by many Fours, who often believe that the confines of genre or page length or even the most basic accepted rules of grammar and punctuation are anathema to true creativity.

But this belief runs counter to that need of significance. If you want to be a significant creative force in the publishing world (or the world at large), you can’t do that if no one reads your stuff. And people will not read your stuff if it’s incomprehensible, the book cover makes no sense, the blurb is a mess, or your words do not follow the expected and accepted rules for your language of choice.

Only once you hit a certain threshold of comprehensibility can you realistically get the book into people’s hands. Yes! Your work could expand and shape hearts and minds! But only if people know about it. And for people to know about it, you must tell them. You know, marketing. It’s not a dirty word, I promise.

You can price your books at free, if that makes you feel like less of a sellout. Then, only do free marketing. Perfect. Your business is breaking even, assuming you don’t shell out for an editor and cover designer (which you really should).

Now, how are you going to eat and pay rent? A day job? Great! Go for it, if that job doesn’t make you interact with superficial and boring people who make you want to jump out of the window. You’re all set.

If that’s not the case, though, maybe consider selling your books to eventually make enough to quit your office job and devote ALL your energy to your important creative work.

When an Individualist is maxed out, that valuable tendency to find beauty in the darker corners of the world can morph into straight nihilism. Self-pity and the misunderstood artist archetype start to emerge in everyday interactions, which feeds a vicious cycle. Fours insist that nobody understands them, and in doing so, they make their misery incomprehensible to others, which makes them even more misunderstood.

Fours must watch out for this, because an Individualist who has lost the motivation to create hits a downward spiral quick, fast, and in a hurry, and it can end in some unfortunate permanent decisions. That internal furnace of creation turns into one of self-destruction, and I don’t want that for you. You don’t deserve that, no matter what the voice inside your head may say. (As a One, I swing to the lower side of Four when I’m under stress, so I’m intimately familiar with the harmful scripts that play on repeat in that emotional space.)

When I’m working with an Individualist who’s struggling with motivation, it’s usually because they don’t feel like their writing is getting the attention it deserves. They’re probably right, too. The Four’s ability to tap into the broad range of human emotion, to create beauty from the mundane and assign normality to the bizarre is a rare gift that the world needs.

But feeling like you or your work deserve more than you’re receiving is the first step toward this insidious thing called “envy,” the passion of the Four.

Envy stems from the idea that other people are getting the praise or life you deserve without having earned it, while you’re getting short changed or ripped off. It creates a fantasy version of the world where everything is stacked against you. It justifies whatever vindictive attempts you might make to ruin what others have rather than focusing on your own life and the possible legitimate reasons you don’t have what you believe you deserve.

Envy murders motivation. It says that the deck is stacked against you, so why even try? It says that your energy is better spent leveling the playing field by pulling others down instead of building yourself up. Envy is a sinking ship that will suck anyone near it to the bottom of the ocean.

Usually, when Fours come to see me in this state, the truth is that a few cosmetic tweaks may be all that stands between their book selling zero copies and it selling enough to gain serious momentum. But when we get caught in the thought pattern that the universe is against us, it’s incredibly hard to focus on the details in front of us or receive constructive feedback. Most people aren’t great at delivering criticism, either, so it’s worth paying for someone like me who has years of experience delivering honest feedback in ways creatives can take without wanting to run away.

It would be a shame to be a few superficial tweaks away from a breakthrough only to give up before you made it. So, don’t do that. Instead, keep reading.

Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.

Below are descriptions of a Four in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):

Healthy: A self-regenerating creative, profoundly inspired, able to see the beautiful in the mundane, introspective, sensitive, comfortable feeling the full spectrum of human emotions without identifying with them, individualistic and effortlessly unique, intuitive, highly attuned to the feelings of others.
Average: Strong sense for aesthetics, creates a heightened reality through fantasy, interiorizing of the world turns to self-absorption, prone to moodiness, withdrawn, feels they are exempt from social norms, envy of others leads to justification of self-indulgence, creates fantasized versions of friends, family, and lovers (positive or negative).

Unhealthy: Withdrawn and angry at self and others when dreams and fantasies don’t pan out, loses self in paralyzing shame, self-hatred arises, runs off those trying to help with blame and accusations, engages in self-destructive behavior, indulges in altering substances to escape reality, self-harm likely at the lowest development level.

If you’re not a Four, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Fours can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.  

Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?

The trick is simple: Remember that nobody can write the stories you have to tell but you, and those stories are important to human consciousness. When you find yourself getting hung up asking the big questions about your own significance in the grand scheme, it’s important to view that as raw motivational power. You can let it fester into negative thoughts like, “Does it even matter if I write this?” or you can remind yourself that these kinds of questions and considerations are shared by everyone, and you’re the best person to explore them because they are so central to who you are.

You were built to write stories that explore identity and our place in the world. This is your gift, and that insatiable longing you feel will never let up unless you plumb these depths. Sorry, but through creativity is your only way out from the thick of your emotions.  

Structure can also be your friend. If you feel unmotivated, it might be that you are unable to wrangle your emotions into something tangible. Give yourself constraints, be that the length of work you’re going to produce, what voice you’ll write in, what tone you’ll aim for, or what theme you’ll write to.

Have you ever told 5-year-olds to entertain themselves without any boundaries? Of course not. That’s a bad idea. They will immediately apply permanent marker to your favorite keepsakes. We give the unrefined creative energy of little kids rules and supervision, and that’s when they can most fruitfully enjoy themselves. Too many rules and restrictions will make things much less fun, but as a Four, you’re in little danger of giving yourself too many constraints. But some are needed. You must build channels for your creativity to flow through rather than flooding the entire plain.

Write stories about outcasts, oddballs, and pariahs. Write an antihero. Write from the perspective of an alien landing on a new planet. And write it all for the younger you who clung so dearly to works of art like that.

Your ability to sit with the full range of emotions without flinching is a gift you can offer through your words. People need to see the characters they like and respect run the gambit of messiness. It gives the reader permission to feel. Though you might view your flood of emotions as a weakness, I can tell you that in this stifled world, it’s an innate talent you can model for others.

Every Enneagram type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the Four, the red flag is fantasizing. This looks like clinging to a mood and creating fantasized versions of reality to support that mood.

The problem with this is that we stop seeing people and situations as they are, and that’s not fair to others or ourselves. It took me years to understand why the songs my Individualist ex-boyfriend wrote about me bothered me so much, but now I see that each one was a fantasy version of me—either idealizing or demonizing, depending on where we were in our relationship when he wrote it—but not actually me. Hearing them performed in front of our friends was a dehumanizing experience as a result. He hadn’t been seeing me at all; he’d been seeing his fantasized image of me.

And for Fours, this can leave you trapped in a fantasy that’s like watching the world through a frosted window but never getting to touch and experience it for yourself. As you can imagine, this would make anyone feel even more isolated.

I’ll admit, I’m a little jealous of the work that Fours can produce once they find that motivation and set their mind to it. It’s the kind of art that stops you in your tracks, that moves you, that creates powerful emotions even in the Enneagram types most disconnected from their emotional centers. The Four is so powerful that simply having it as your wing (wing = a type on either side of the dominant type that can be used to reinforce the aims of the dominant type) can turn a Three with a Four wing (Taylor Swift) or a Five with a Four wing (Stephen King) into a powerful creator whose art thrusts us into particular moods whether we like it or not.

It's easy to spot an Individualist writer when you read them because their work transports you, and the mood and emotions of it stick to you like a film for hours, day, or even years after. Edgar Allan Poe—the quintessential Four—writes about this, describing it as a “singular effect” that he aims for in each of his stories. Not sure what I’m talking about? Go read The Fall of the House of Usher and you’ll understand. When I started reading Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (a Four) a few years ago, I put the book down after the first page, said, “Okay, this is going to be that kind of book,” made myself some tea, discarded the bra, and snuggled under a heap of blankets to prepare for the moody onslaught I would thoroughly enjoy for hours on end.

Individualist artists love to play with themes of identity, too. Virginia Woolf does it brazenly in Orlando, and Prince did it in the span of his entire career. Those types of public explorations can challenge the reader or audience to analyze their own identity, which may have calcified over time, with a fresh and critical eye.

So if you’re struggling to put the words down or the words you’re writing feel aimless or like “meaningless garbage,” see if any of these unhelpful scripts are running on loop in your head:

“Is this unoriginal trash?”

“Someone’s already written this.”

“There are no original ideas left in this world.”

“I loathe writing.”

“Anyone who writes faster than I do is turning out crap.”

“If I write any faster, I’ll turn out crap like everyone else.”

“No one will ever understand my art.”

“It doesn’t make a difference to anyone if I write this or not.”

“Readers only like crap nowadays, like the stuff [bestselling author] writes.”

“Books have to fit every genre trope for anyone to read them, and I don’t write tropes.”

“Nobody reads anymore.”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but every one of these ideas is faultier than the Texas power grid. Each of them is your ego or personal identity trying to spare itself possible injury. Your ego doesn’t care about YOU. It doesn’t care if you ever create anything meaningful. All it cares about it risk aversion. You can say, “Thank you, ego. I know you’re trying to protect me, but I have something important to share with the world.”

Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.

It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated and connected to the work when we’re Individualists.

So, if you’re a Four who’s struggling with motivation:

• Honestly, what else are you going to do with your life and all that longing? Express it or it’ll ferment in your gut.

• Establish a few more rules on form or process, then let loose with content.

• Remember that the path to feeling less isolated is communication, and the first step to communication is expression. Withholding your ideas out of fear of being misunderstood is the fastest way to keep people from being able to understand you.

• Learn to spot envy in yourself and use that as a signal that someone has something you want. Then plan action that will move you more toward that thing, taking the power to achieve your dreams and your desired significance out of the hands of the universe, restoring it to you.

• When you find yourself ruminating, fantasizing, or spending too much time in your own imagination, go out and engage your senses in the present. This is where you’ll find so much inspiration that not writing will feel impossible.

• Build relationships with other authors, even if you feel like the oddball in the group. If you don’t do this, your tendency toward fantasy will fill in the gaps of what you think you know about the community, and if envy gets involved, it won’t be a positive outlook. It also won’t be real.

• Try framing “I’m misunderstood” as “I have a unique perspective people can’t get anywhere else.” Don’t dramatize others rejecting you before you even give them a chance to love and appreciate you.  

Next week, we’ll discuss how to find your writing motivation if you’re a Type 5, the Investigator. This is the type of Stephen King, Ursula K. LeGuin, Sherlock Holmes, and Severus Snape.

Motivation: Type Two, the Helper

Ask a group of people what they think of Shel Silverstein’s book The Giving Tree, and you’re almost guaranteed to start a heated debate. Is it a sweet story of unconditional love, or is it a tragedy about how people can give until they’re all used up?

If you’re an Enneagram Type 2, the Helper, this question will hit home especially hard for you. Can you ever give or help too much? Is it shameful to feel angry after you’ve willingly given everything you had but gotten nothing in return?

These are central questions that Twos battle with their whole life, but a little Enneagram guidance can go a long way toward finding comfortable answers.

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

Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Twos, “the Helpers.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build a nice little author life for ourselves if this is our type.

If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write strong Helper characters, but I guarantee you have a Two close to you in your life and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.

At their core, Twos’ desire is to be loved. Their fear is that they’ll be unworthy of love. Love and service are central to this type, who can enjoy fulfilling lifelong friendships as well as plenty of one-sided relationships if they’re not careful.

The Twos I know are almost too sweet for this world. They have so much love to give that not showing it to others can be physically and emotionally painful. They’re natural nurturers, which makes them exceptional at anticipating the needs of others. But if they don’t learn a few raw truths about the nature of help vs. enabling and interdependency vs. codependency, the world around them will use them up. And as you can imagine, it’s hard to get the words down when you’re all used up.

If you’re a Two, it’s important to attach everything you do to a deeper motivation of nurturing the world, and that includes yourself.  We hear the words “self-care” thrown around in somewhat obnoxious ways all the time, but it’s a necessary ritual for Twos to build into their daily routine. I’m not talking bubble baths and manicures (though feel free to treat yourself to those, too). I’m talking about protecting your writing time like a mother dog defends her pups. I’m talking about learning to ask for and accept help. While caring for others comes naturally for a Two, these forms of self-care generally do not.

Twos: You must learn to protect your flow of love! It’s a bright and bubbling font that attracts all kinds of creepy crawlers of the human species. It may feel rewarding to provide that nurturing at first, and you may even convince yourself that by drinking from your well, those creepy crawlers will be transformed into adorable little forest creatures. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.  

When I’m working with a Helper who is struggling with motivation, it’s usually because this exchange of energy is off. If you’re a Two who sits by yourself all day, you may need to work more social time into your schedule so you can expend some of the nurturing energy that’s building up inside you. But more likely, your day consists of too many people with endless needs, and you’ve left nothing for yourself and your art. This is a tragedy, and obviously I won’t tolerate it. I care about you too much, Two.

Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.

Below are descriptions of a Two in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):

Healthy: Feels unconditional love for others and self, is empathetic, attuned to the needs of others and gives what is needed rather than whatever will win approval, maintains clear boundaries and is able to accept help, flourishes in interdependent relationships
Average: Gives to ingratiate or people please, forces help upon others, becomes possessive of those who have received the help, acts self-important based on ability to give

Unhealthy: Relies on forced reciprocation to manipulate others, feels entitled after giving, refuses help from others then plays the martyr, feels perpetually victimized, acts helpless to force others into codependency

If you’re not a Two, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Twos can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.

Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?

The trick is simple: You need to be writing books that provide nurturance for your readers. Twos often end up writing romance for this reason. The promise of an HEA gives readers who need some TLC a safe place to find it.

Write stories that heal others while you heal yourself. Write stories where the conflict is resolved through your protagonist’s self-love. Show your readers, through the art of fiction, how we can build healthy relationships where love flows equally both ways and leave toxic relationships that take more than they give. Inspire others to love themselves the same way they love the world. You are a healer and nurturer by nature. Write stories that serve your soul, and those stories will serve the souls of your readers as well.

To a certain extent, American/Western culture expects all women to behave like Twos—selflessly giving and not asking for anything in return, yet somehow lasting in this way for decades and decades—mothers especially. And because these average and unhealthy traits of a Two are rewarded (by not being actively punished), Helpers can easily fall into that unhealthy trap.

Other types will usually reach a point where they say, “Yeah, this just ain’t me,” and default to their particular core motivations instead, but the Two is left behind, accepting the crumbs social rewards and avoiding punishment by being their unhealthy self. What a shitty situation to be in!

Twos who struggle to express their needs, or have done so in the past only to be met with indifference and neglect, can fall into what’s called the Drama Triangle. This includes three roles that a person rotates through: rescuer, martyr, persecutor.

In Twos, it starts like this: their genuine desire to help and care for others becomes an overexaggerated ego need that expresses itself in such a way that the Helper takes on the role of “rescuer.”

From time to time, most adults benefit from help, but not necessarily rescuing. Rescuing a person establishes a relationship dynamic where one person gives, and the other receives, but not in anything close to equal measure.

Once the Helper’s resources for rescuing are tapped out, they realize the situation is lopsided. Their stores are exhausted. They’ve given all their love to someone and left none for helping themselves. And then—gasp—in their time of need, no one is around to rescue them! (Twos’ pride usually means they show no obvious symptoms of needing help and therefore expect people to just know.) This leads to the next stage of the Drama Triangle as the rescuer becomes the martyr.

There’s a certain satisfaction to being a martyr. It shows that you have more love to give than others, and in the eyes of a Two, this might make you feel a pop of superiority. But that dries up quickly, and when your rescuer still hasn’t arrived, the third part of the Drama Triangle goes into effect, and the martyr becomes the persecutor. How dare no one else give until they drop over dead! How dare people not do for you what you did for others.

This is obviously not a healthy way to live, and to be fair, most Twos only experience mild versions of it. But none of it is good, and all of it is a missed opportunity for growth and development of healthy boundaries.

Every type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the Two, the red flag is people pleasing. This is the point at which the Helper switches from giving the help that she is 1) able to give without over-giving and 2) is the amount needed by the recipient, and instead she begins giving based upon what will ingratiate her to those she’s giving to.

For example, maybe your friend needs $10 to cover a cab, and you give them $50 instead. It’s important for Twos to ask why precisely they threw in the extra $40. Because the recipient is wondering the same thing. What are they expected to do in return?

This creates a strange dynamic called “forced reciprocation.” It leaves the recipient on edge because humans have evolved with a sense of reciprocation (it’s what keeps us a social species), and we have a primal reaction to someone doing something for us: we want to return the favor and in equal or greater measure.

So, when a Two gives more than what the recipient genuinely needs, they’re putting them in a power-down position, socially speaking. The recipient will feel indebted to the Two, which is the groundwork for codependency (unhealthy attachment) rather than interdependency (a healthy and free flow of love and energy).

Combating these less than desirable patterns starts with a single word: no.

“Yes” comes naturally to a Helper, but saying “I won’t” before having to admit “I can’t” is called boundaries, and it’s a developed skill.

Writing a book is a long process. There are weeks, months, or years between when we write the first word and when others see our product and can benefit from it in the way we intended.

This means that those quick-fixes our brain often craves—instant gratification for our core desires and numbing to soothe our core fear—are not always baked into the book writing process. (If we’re smart about it and self-aware, though, we can build those in.)

So, if you’re a Two, you may know in your heart that your book will provide the nurturance to your readers that you hope for, but between the first word and hitting publish, what are you supposed to do, hold all your love inside?

No way. Especially when there are all kinds of people you can help on a daily basis! Woohoo!

So, you wake up at 6am to pack lunches for your kids and have breakfast ready for them. Then, it’s time to sit and write for two hours.

But then your wife overslept and can’t find her keys and the printer isn’t working but she needs to print out something before she can go to the big meeting at work in half an hour! Helper to the rescue!

Finally, you sit down with an hour and fifteen minutes left in your writing time. Better than nothing. But your sister just texted you saying that she had a big fight with her husband last night. Poor thing. You give her a call. When that’s done, you sit down to write and only have fifteen minutes left.

Well, shoot. That’s hardly any time at all before you head over to the women’s prison to volunteer. Probably better to leave 15 minutes early in case you hit traffic.

Suddenly, no writing.

Is this a familiar story?

I would never tell a Two not to care for the people they love. But when giving becomes a matter of instant gratification for our core desire (to be loved) and a balm for our core fear (to be unlovable), then it rules our schedule and kills our ability to create projects that require time before the payoff.

Don’t come at me with pitchforks, but maybe your kids can order lunch at school. Maybe they can fix their own breakfast. Your wife got herself into this mess and she’s a grown-up. Let her fix it for herself (she’ll feel better about having done it solo). And while your sister might need a shoulder to cry on, she can wait until you have available time, or she can speak with a therapist. None of those options makes you selfish or unloving. It’s normal boundary setting. People may (will) respond poorly at first as you break the pattern, but if they genuinely love you, they’ll adjust, and you’re helping them in the end by asking them to solve their own minor problems. 

There’s really nothing like watching a Two who’s developed their gifts of love and caring express all of that through their creativity. Dolly Parton is an example of this. She made a name through the soulful songs that could only be created by someone with the ability to feel love so truly and deeply. As a result, she’s amassed enough financial resources to have plenty to give without 1) leaving nothing for herself or 2) expecting others to reciprocate. The people she has in her life love her fiercely and freely because of the love she’s given without expectation of receiving.

Same for Stevie Wonder, another Two. As far as fictional characters go, you have the loyal servant Samwise Gamgee, whose love for his friend Frodo inspires love back (okay, shippers, I see you). And then you have Molly Weasley, whose love for her many children takes all sort of shapes, from knitting them every article of clothing they own to uttering the only instance of “you bitch” in the entire series. The love of the Two can be fierce when it needs to be.

Helpers may be sweet, but they are not weak. The opposite, in fact. They’re strong enough to love in a world that doesn’t always show them love back. They’ll fight for love. When they’re healthy, they’ll be the shoulder to cry on in the hard times and the stalwart defender of those who cannot defend themselves.

There’s that now famous quote from the late Fred Rogers. We’ve all heard it, but it’s worth reading again in the context of this discussion:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.”

Helpers, you restore our faith in humanity. You are the heart of humankind.

So if you’re struggling to put the words down or market your book, see if any of these scripts are running on loop in your head:

“I should be helping [whoever], not selfishly writing a book.”

“No one wanted my last book, so why bother with this one?”

“This is the book where everyone is going to read it and stop loving me.”

“My family needs me more.”

“I shouldn’t need a break.”

“If I stopped writing, no one would care.”

“I haven’t earned my writing time.”

“I can write after I’ve completed X,Y,Z.”

“I’ll write once [whoever] is in a better situation and doesn’t need my assistance.”

“How can I write when there’s so much pain in the world and no one’s doing anything about it?”

Creativity is a human requirement like exercise or a healthy diet. If you’ve chosen writing as your passion (or it’s chosen you), then it is not selfish to meet your basic human need. It is also not selfish to meet it before you meet the needs of others. After all, the only person who can meet your creative needs is you.

Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.

It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated when we’re Helpers.

So, if you’re a Two who’s struggling with motivation:

• Remember what your purpose for writing is and the caring world you want to create for your reader.  

• Find ways to connect with readers frequently (daily, even) throughout the writing process so you don’t have to wait months for any meaningful gratification.

• Express your needs to readers. They care about you more than you know, and you probably have a lot of Twos who would benefit from seeing that modeled.

• Learn to recognize when a relationship has fallen into a pattern of you giving more than you’re receiving and address it. (Maybe they’ll leave, or maybe they’ll change their behavior. Their response is outside of your control but standing up for yourself is not.)

• If you start to feel like a martyr, ask yourself who you’re trying to rescue and whether you’ve been helping or enabling, then set aside time ASAP to care for your own needs.

• Build relationships with other authors who will support you when it comes time to set and enforce difficult boundaries around your writing time.

• Schedule frequent time for self-care like exercise and sports, journaling, psychotherapy, preparing healthy meals for yourself, naps, and time with competent friends who make you feel unconditionally loved.

Next week, we’ll discuss how to find you writing motivation if you’re a Type 3, the Achiever. This is the type of Taylor Swift, Oprah, Odysseus, and Jay Gatsby.

I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on this type. Maybe you just realized this describes you and you feel slightly attacked but equally seen. Maybe your spouse or parent or sibling is a Two and suddenly everything makes sense. I live for these insights, so send them my way. And if you have remaining questions, I’ll take those, too.

Motivation: Type One, the Reformer

There’s the syndrome that one out of every nine people, myself included, suffers from. It’s called Fuck It, I’ll Do It Myself, or FIIDIM. There’s a lesser version of it called Screw it, I’ll Do It Myself (SIIDIM), but the people I’ve met who suffer from it usually experience the more severe form.

Symptoms of FIIDIM include an overactive sense of personal obligation, perfectionism, acute judgement of self and others, headaches, resentment, and exhaustion.

This is not a real syndrome, obviously, but if you’re an Enneagram One, the Reformer, then you might have read all that with wide eyes as you realized someone had finally diagnosed you properly.

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

Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Ones, “the Reformers.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build a nice little author life for ourselves if this is our type.

If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write strong Reformer characters, but I guarantee you have a One close to you in your life and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.

At their core, Ones’ desire is to be good and moral and balanced. Their fear is that they’ll be bad or corrupt or imbalanced. Fairness is also important to this type, which connects back to the need for balance and righteousness and extends to a deep dedication to justice of all types.

I’ve noticed that when people first identify their type, they usually feel like it’s the worst one to have, but after doing some of the inner work on it, they begin to feel like it’s the best one to have as they realize what gifts they bring to the world. (Not to be a killjoy, but all types are equally important for a healthy world.)

Ones are frequently stereotyped as neat freaks, but I can say from personal experiencing of being a One that this is not necessarily true. I like when everything is organized, but my need to maintain order and improve things is focused on bigger issues than my desk or how the dishwasher is loaded. So, sometimes messier Ones are mistyped.

If you’re a One, it’s important to attach everything you do to a deeper motivation of making the world around you a better place. That’s what we do. It’s why we’re called the Reformers. Our ability to find the flaws and injustices of the world is our strength (even if it makes us feel like we’re taking crazy pills from time to time), and our ability to envision ways forward toward something more just, equitable, and good is the gift we can share with the world.

That is, of course, when we’re at our best.

Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.

Most people, when beginning their Enneagram work, start at a low-average level of development (Level 5 or 6, where 1 is healthy and 9 is destructively unhealthy). We’ll occasionally dip into the unhealthy levels, and that’s usually ugly for everyone involved. We’ll also experience healthy moments of our type now and again, but more out of luck of circumstances than any conscious effort.

Below are descriptions of a One in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):

Healthy: Possesses deep wisdom, conducts oneself with integrity, works toward building a better world, stands up for what they believe in despite the personal cost, inspires others to be more merciful and less judgmental, treats self with mercy and acceptance.
Average: Striving hard worker, self-controlled but often rigid, critical and judgmental of self and others, functions on basis of personal obligation.

Unhealthy: Self-righteous and condemning, obsessive, hypocritical with incoherent moral beliefs, a sense of entitlement to punish others, downright merciless.

If you’re not a One, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Ones can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.

Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?

The trick is simple: You need to be writing books that you believe will make the world a better place by existing and attracting readers. Writing to trend in some genre you don’t care about with stock characters that go through the motions will not be enough to get you out of your warm bed in the morning.

Write stories that activate those healthy parts of yourself. Write stories that require characters to stand up for what they believe in. Show your readers, through the art of fiction, how we can fix the things that are broken in the world, in others, and in ourselves. Inspire others to love themselves, imperfections and all. You are a fixer and healer by nature. Use it for good, not evil.

When you start to feel less motivated, it’s usually because you’ve lost sight of the purpose and importance of the work you’re creating. You might start thinking, Nothing in the world would change if I never published another book, so why bother?

Exactly! Nothing will change, and the way things are isn’t working. But your voice, your stories, can push the world toward something better. You can’t do it all on your own, but you can do a part of it. That’s all you need to do because 1/9th of the population is a Reformer like you, so you’re not in this alone.  

I have a sticky note on my computer that says, “What the fuck else are you going to do with your LIFE?!” In typical One fashion, I approach myself with a little tough love and pitch-black humor, but the message reminds me of my sense of purpose, and that’s why it’s there where I see it every day.

As a Reformer, I write stories to change hearts and minds. Life is short, and I want to make a positive impact, and this is the best way I’ve found to do it using my talents. The positive emails from readers only confirm that I’m on the right track. But speaking unpopular truths and criticizing the status quo isn’t without its punishments (and one-star reviews), and when those happen, I need the reminder: What the fuck else would you do with your life, Claire? I can’t come up with a more worthy way to spend my years, and so I get back to work.

Pay attention to where your mind goes when you’re writing. Are you having trouble getting to the next scene because you’ve slipped into harsh self-judgment? Are you working on projects because you feel like you should or because you’re passionate about them?

Every type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the One, the red flag is personal obligation. This is that FIIDIM syndrome I mentioned, and the reason we need to watch out for it is because personal obligation invalidates our desire for boundaries around our energy. And when boundaries are ignored or infringed upon, resentment seeps in. Over time, it becomes the water we swim in.

Resentment is something Ones really need to watch out for. It’s our trap. It sends us plummeting into those unhealthy levels at breakneck speed if we’re not careful, and once you’re there, you’re not going to be able to write anything your healthy self would be proud of, if you can even get yourself to put down words at all.

Combating this starts with not agreeing to things that don’t move you deeply and engage your higher self just because you think they need to get done. There is so much good you could do in every corner of the world and in every relationship you have. Don’t be afraid to narrow it down and put your energy toward the things that matter to you most.

There’s really nothing like watching a One who’s developed their gifts of wisdom and discretion and mercy pick up a cause and champion it. Nelson Mandela is an example of this. So is Elizabeth Warren. As far as fictional characters go, you have Bruce Wayne and Hermione Granger. Batman fights corruption (especially this new version, which Ones should definitely check out), and Hermione fights for house elf rights (and constantly follows her conscience in tricky matters of the wizarding world).

You might think that Ones aren’t a lot of fun to be around or that they’re necessarily overly serious killjoys, but that’s not the case. When we’re around our close friends, we tend to resemble the fun-loving Seven, and there are plenty of famous comedians who are Reformers, like Jerry Seinfeld, Tina Fey, and Bo Burnham. We just do fun and comedy our own way. But everyone can rest assured that when a One is having fun, it’s harmless fun, because they’ve already put it through extensive moral vetting.

Laughter is also an essential part of a healthy One. You’ll never stop noticing the flaws in yourself and others, sorry. It just ain’t in the cards for you. But if you learn to laugh at your own flaws and the foibles of mankind, you’ll do yourself (and your nervous system) a huge favor.

 I figure I’ll end each of these emails with some subconscious scripts that might trip up people of this type and sap our motivation if left unchecked and unquestioned. If you’re struggling to put the words down or market your book, see if any of these are running on loop in your head:

“Nobody cares if I publish this or not.”

“Why am I writing made-up stories when there are so many problems in the world that need fixing?”

“This book is garbage and I’m just going to embarrass myself.”

“I can believe I agreed to this project. How dare someone ask this much of me.”

“I can’t move onto the next scene until this one is fixed/perfect.”

“Nothing I do is going to make any difference in this screwed up world anyway.”

All of these statements are false. You may not believe me, but try entertaining the idea for a while and see how your life would feel if you stopped thinking these things. (Spoiler: much lighter and more joyful.)

Your inner critic is trying to protect you from your worst nightmare of being bad or corrupt, but it’s going about it in the least helpful way possible. Try summoning these negative thoughts to the forefront and saying, “Thank you for trying to protect me, but I don’t need that belief anymore.”

Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.

It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated when we’re Reformers. Out with the critical, in with the purpose-driven.

So, if you’re a One who’s struggling with motivation:

• Remember what your purpose for writing is and what you want to change for the better in this world.

• Get your karate hands up when you realize you’re functioning with a sense of personal obligation rather than passion, and either drop that project like it’s hot or find a way it can support your goals of making the world a better place.

• Watch out when you become overly critical of others. It causes you to be equally critical of yourself, and that is detrimental to creative work.

• Learn to laugh at yourself. The hardest belly laughs I ever experience are at my own expense.

• If you find yourself telling lots of stories that paint you as the hero, it might mean that you’re feeling more like a villain and need to stop and reassess. Great insight can be found in those moments that you can stitch into your current book.

• Build relationships with other people who share your passion for causes so you remember you don’t have to do it all on your own.

• Schedule frequent time for rest. You’re an intense person and when you commit yourself to something, you go hard. You can’t do that forever. Rest is an essential part of your work if you want it to continue long term.

Next week, we’ll discuss how to find you writing motivation if you’re a Type 2, the Helper. This is the type of Dolly Parton, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Samwise Gamgee, and Molly Weasley.

I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on this type. Maybe you just realized this describes you and you feel slightly attacked but equally seen. Maybe your spouse or parent or sibling is a One and suddenly everything makes sense. I live for these insights, so send them my way. And if you have remaining questions, I’ll take those, too.

Motivation: The Nine Types

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.

Motivation: Internal and External

By the time you reach adulthood, you’ve usually learned a trick or two for getting things done when you don’t feel like doing them. These are good survival skills for sure, but what happens when you can’t outsmart your own brain any longer?

What happens when you say, “I don’t get to eat those cookies until I go to the gym?” and then your brain replies, “I do what I want, asshole,” and eats the cookies but skips the gym? Mutiny!

Or what happens if, instead of the gym, it’s getting our words down each day? What happens when we open the in-progress manuscript and feel the overwhelming urge to do anything else? Motivation has betrayed us!

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 entry, go here: www.ffs.media/story-tips/category/Motivation+series 

It’s important to note that there are two kinds of motivation—internal and external. When we are tapped into strong internal motivation, the thing we want to do usually gets done. The world may throw obstacles our way, but we are able to dig down deep and say, “I’m going to get this done regardless because it matters so much to me.” 

Can you remember a time when you felt that motivated and got it done? Everyone I know has experienced this in some capacity, and it feels incredible. It teaches you something about yourself.

But it may have been a while since you last felt that.

These can be inspiring stories, the mothers who write novels during their time waiting in the car at their children’s soccer practices, the authors who find loose change in couch cushions and eat ramen for weeks to afford the book cover they know their story deserves.

To be honest, though, stories of that magnitude feel relatively foreign to me. I can’t think of a time my creativity faced that steep of an incline and I hooved my way up and out of the gorge on sheer will and against all odds like that. Good for those people who do, but I don’t know if I’ve ever accomplished anything that cool and improbable. Yet I’ve accomplished quite a bit and pretty much live the life I dreamed about when I was young (it’s conspicuously missing an animal rescue for baby goats, but there’s still time). 

So, let us not resort to the extreme cases of internally motivated people. All my respect for digging deep like that. We love to see it. But if that’s not you like it’s not me, don’t worry.

Internal motivation is the key to everything. It’s not terrible to rely on external motivation from time to time, after all, we’re human and sometimes our body chemistry isn’t conducive to wanting anything other than hibernation, Lindor truffles, and to stream 30 hours straight of The Office.

When that’s the case, when our internal motivation isn’t urging us to sit and write the manuscript, we have two choices, don’t we? We can listen to it and rest (or do whatever else you want to do), or we can find a big juicy carrot to dangle in front of us.

Sometimes that carrot is money. Sometimes it’s spending time with friends. Sometimes it’s food. It can be anything that you’d enjoy more than you enjoy writing in that moment. Something better on the other side.

Or, if you’re more of the masochist, you can pick the stick. The stick is punishment, something you want to avoid. I have a friend who made an agreement with his ex-wife that he had to pay for her a large sum of money if he failed to hit his weekly goal. This is an extreme stick. And it worked for him.

The analogy of the stick and carrot is just a way of saying “fear” and “desire,” the two motivating forces. We move toward the carrot, something we desire, and away from the stick, something we fear.

These are easy things to set up for ourselves as adults who have control over our time and finances, and we become experts at them.

But deep down, we know that it’s all a game, one we could choose to stop playing whenever we want.

And so it is that external motivators inevitably fail us or run thin.

I’m not saying to never use external motivation, and external structure in one’s rituals and environments is essential to a productive creative life. Definitely set up your workspace so it’s distraction free and so forth. Clear out all the obstacles you can.

It’s your choice how heavily you rely on external motivation over internal.

If you’re two days from finishing a project and out of gas but up against a deadline, sure, go for it. Get it done. Bribe yourself with the promise of a nice dinner or binge watching a show once you’ve passed the finish line. Then plan on resting once you hit your goal, because you’ll be at a deficit.

Internal motivation and external motivation can’t exist at the same time. Daniel Pink’s book When: the Science of Perfect Timing discusses this in depth, so if you want to learn more about that, check it out. The point is, you’re using one or the other, not both.

So, if dangling a carrot or threatening with a stick has become your standard practice, watch out! There’s a good chance you haven’t glimpsed your internal motivation in weeks. 

Is internal motivation better than external motivation then? You might be wondering this. My answer is a resounding yes. It is always better, but sometimes it’s not always socially or occupationally beneficial. That’s because it’s more cyclical than we may prefer.

Our internal motivation for a particular project, purpose, or activity ebbs and flows, it has seasons like anything else in nature, and when it’s in one of those lower points, when it needs time to rest and renew, our schedules and deadlines might not be aligned. Not wanting to let ourselves and others down, we close our eyes and say, “External motivation, take the wheel!”

And sometimes external motivation forgets to give the wheel back.

Have you ever seen a child bite onto a topic? Some light turns on in their brain and suddenly they want to spend the next three months devouring everything they can about astronomy or fungi or American pioneers. If you let them, they’ll go, go, go. Without disruption and with the necessary support of an adult who can drive them places and has purchasing power, they can become freaking encyclopedias on their chosen subject.

Now, take another child who has not clicked with that subject and see if you can get them to learn and master the content to the same degree. You’ll find yourself begging and bribing, maybe even threatening, within the first 5 minutes, and you’ll still fail in your attempt. No amount of external motivation (rewards, bribes, punishment, etc.) will ever equal the energetic momentum of internal motivation.

I was homeschooled until I was 11 (it explains a lot, I know). I refused to practice handwriting. I was a perfectionist, and I had practically no fine motor skills. Not a great combo. My mother could not threaten me with enough punishment or bribe me with enough toys to make me complete the writing exercises. Eventually, she gave up.

Then, when I was 10, I learned about calligraphy. I begged for the proper pens and paper. Suddenly, all I did was practice calligraphy. For months and months. Handwriting was no longer a problem. I mean, it was a problem for people who didn’t want to read my calligraphy.

Over time I absorbed my new knowledge of the art into my existing knowledge about regular shapes and came up with a unique style of legible handwriting that makes writing ransom notes an incredibly bad idea for me.

And then I proceeded to fill up notebook after notebook with my handwritten stories.

The same thing happened with reading. I didn’t read a book on my own until I was 8, when I got sick of waiting around for someone else to read to me. I started and never stopped. I think it’s safe to say that having the space to do both of those things only once I developed the internal motivation was not a life setback, as I’ve now published 34 books and written countless more that I’ll never publish.

But I didn’t work on the socially acceptable timeline for reading and writing. And that’s not unusual for internal motivation.  

I’d bet you have a similar example from your youth. Tap into that passion. Remember the curiosity, that thrilling feeling of being totally engrossed in something and not wishing to be doing anything else.

That is the beauty of internal motivation.

And it’s not hard to see how virtually everything in modern society is built contrary to that.

So, if you’re going to value, respect, and encourage your internal motivation to come forth, you’ll have to be a rebel. Seeing as how you’re an indie author, I have no doubt that’s within your repertoire.

Everyone has internal motivation. And if you’ve followed any of my other work, you might know where this is going.

There are nine types of core motivations that explain why we are motivated to do the things we do. We all write, sure, but what we’re hoping to gain from that can look incredibly different based on which of the nine types we fall into.

By identifying the one that is strongest in us, we’re able to take control of our internal motivation and fight back against all the “shoulds” of adulthood. We can’t do it all, so what do we chase? What will fill us up and what will leave us feeling empty?

Why not let your core motivation be your criteria for how to live your life? Something has to be. With so many ways to live in this modern world, why not pick the way that allows that passion, that internal motivation, to flourish?

And next week, I’ll tell you more about those nine types, how you can figure out which is yours, and how to leverage it once you know.

If you don’t want to miss any installments of this series on motivation, be sure to whitelist contact@ffs.media by adding it 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. 

In the meantime, here’s a little homework: take 5 minutes and think of a time when you were younger that you latched onto a topic and couldn’t let go. Channel that obsession. Indulge in it. Think of how you would have nurtured that in your younger self as the adult you are today.

Intro to Author Motivation series

Today marks the start of a multi-week series about author motivation. Welcome. Prepare to feel called out, defensive, laid bare, but ultimately revived. We’ll have ourselves a good old-fashioned hero’s journey.

 Something made you want to be an independent author. The glorious thing about the newness of this industry is that there are no people in it who are only here by inertia or tradition. There’s no, “I’m an indie author because my father and grandfather were before me.” No “This indie press has been in my family for five generations, and now it’s my responsibility to take the mantle and keep the legacy alive.”

Something motivated you to do this in the first place, something that I believe to be pure, straight from the source, and a product of your having brushed up against your life’s true purpose, perhaps by accident. From that moment on, you were cursed lucky enough to recognize a passion, one you could do without the help of anyone else, that no one could keep you from, even if they wanted to.

Not everyone discovers a great passion, but you have. That’s excellent.

So, you began writing stories. It was pure fun for a while, then reality slapped you across the face.

I get it. I really do.

There are innumerable ways how this career and industry can do you wrong, how it can chew you up and spit you out, your soul shredded, little birdies flying circles around your head.  

Spin the wheel to pick an unexpected obstacle! Maybe it’s lack of money, lack of support, too much outside responsibility, not enough time, health issues, technical issues, legal issues, social issues, a death in the family, an unexpected world war.

And still, that little voice inside you says, “But… I still want to write! I love it!”

Perhaps over the years you feel less and less justified in listening to this voice. “It’s not all about what you want,” you tell it, quoting something you were told repeatedly as a child. “It’s about what’s practical.”

Then you stop listening to that voice. You shush it at first, then one day you realize it’s been months since you heard from it. Totally unrelated, your life is falling apart and your mental health is spiraling. RANDOM.

Unfortunately, that small voice saying, “I want to write!” is your soul (whatever that word means to you). Whoops! Probably didn’t want to crush that into oblivion.

Don’t worry, though, because the soul can always return with enough coaxing, assurance, and respect, and keeping it silenced this is not an outcome I’ll allow any of you to accept. I’ll be your creative domme and make you call me “Daddy” if I must, but we’re not going down the road to soul murder.  

Instead, I’m going to help you rediscover that motivation that made you want to write in the first place. That internal motivation is the arsenal of the soul or the “true self,” the army that fights back when the encroaching foes of the world act in opposition.

In the coming weeks, we’re going to redefine “practical.” Practical isn’t suppressing your creative urge. Practical isn’t staying in a job you hate because it makes you rich. Practical isn’t erasing your needs to keep the peace or please others. And yet, we all commit these atrocities against ourselves in the name of “practicality” from time to time.

As we discuss the 9 types of core motivations in the coming weeks, my hope is that you’ll see how each type brings a necessary piece to the puzzle of humanity and how living into our natural self and fanning the flames of our soul’s desire to write rather than snuffing them out is, in fact, the most practical approach to living.

If you don’t want to miss an installment of this series on motivation, be sure to whitelist contact@ffs.media by adding it 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.  

Stay tuned, because next week, we’re going to talk more about internal and external motivation followed by the nine types of motivations that come together to create a healthy world.

Happy writing,
Claire