Red flags for writers — what’s yours?
Lack of motivation hits us all.
When you’re a writer, it can look a lot of ways, from going into autopilot to yours word count coming to a grinding halt.
I get it. I’ve been there. And I work with authors who are there every week.
I use the Enneagram framework when consulting with folks on their stories and their careers, and there’s this interesting turning point that isn’t talked about enough within the community.
Regardless of your Enneagram type, this is something that you should learn about yourself, as it can save you a lot of bad decisions and regrettable behavior.
For those who don’t know, the Enneagram is a framework of core motivation, which breaks down into a person’s core fear and core desire (basically flip sides of the same coin).
Each Enneagram type has 9 levels of development — three healthy, three average, and three unhealthy. Our movement between these levels is fluid, but we hope to never dip down into those unhealthy levels, because they can get quite sinister.
So, for the most part, we live our lives in the healthy and average levels.
But the average levels are where a lot of people feel stuck. They’re still locked in these unconscious patterns of behavior that aren’t suiting them, are draining them, and are essentially the water they live in. “Help! This isn’t working for me, but I don’t know what else there is!”
And that’s usually when I try to show up and drop a lifeline.
Once we experience the healthy expression of our type more and more, we start to get it, and everything feels a little (a lot) easier. We go from the usual, “Ugh, I hate this type. Do I really have to be it?” to “I love being this type!”
The secret behind all these mechanisms is something simple yet complicated. It’s your connection to yourself.
In the healthy levels, you are connected strongly to yourself. You understand who you are, what matters to you, and you embody it easily.
Then, as you pass from healthy to average (level 3 to 4), you necessarily sever your connection to self in some small way and instead start seeking it externally, where it can never be found.
It’s subtle at first, but it can cause a serious spiral if you’re unaware of what’s happening. Because the more we seek the connection to ourselves externally, the less connected to ourselves we become.
It’s a sucky place to be, but I have good news: we DO know what the first sign of disconnection is for each Enneagram type! So, if you know yours, you know what to watch out for.
I’ve heard this first sign of disconnection referred to as the wake-up call, but I usually call it a red flag.
When you sense yourself doing this red flag, it’s time to pause and spend a little time checking in to see what went wrong, where you stepped away from yourself, and what you need to do to repair that connection.
Am I saying you should be a self-contained person who never connects with the outside world? Of course not. This is not a hermit thing, though I do love a classic hermit moment now and again.
The secret is that you can only feel as connected to others as you are connected to yourself.
So when you lose your self-connection and start seeking it externally (subconsciously, usually), you paradoxically make it more and more difficult to form healthy and meaningful interpersonal connections. Whoops!
Here are the red flags for each type. If you know your type, check it out:
Type 1, the Reformer: Personal Obligation
Type 2, the Helper: People Pleasing
Type 3, the Achiever: Performing
Type 4, the Individualist: Fantasizing
Type 5, the Investigator: Conceptualizing
Type 6, the Loyalist: Seeking External Security
Type 7, the Enthusiast: Restlessness
Type 8, the Challenger: Forcefulness
Type 9, the Peacemaker: Accommodation
How do these patterns affect your life? I’ll give you a personal example.
I’m a Type 1, the Reformer. When I learned about my red flag of personal obligation, I was left speechless, like, “But if I don’t do things out of personal obligation, what makes me do things?”
Answer: joy, passion, love, etc.
But it took removing the coating of obligation I’d put all over everything before I could see that.
Learning your red flag is a huge step toward reclaiming your life. You stop living from one trigger to the next and take back the reins. It’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s worth it in the end.
If you want to learn more about how the Enneagram can help you take back your author career and write more resonant stories for the right readers, I’m releasing a book through Kickstarter in July, and you can sign up to be notified when it goes live by going to www.kickffs.com.
In the meantime, let me know what you think! Have you heard about these ref flags before? And did seeing the one for your type produce a pretty little “oh shit” moment like mine did for me? Let me know in a comment!
