7 Struggles of the Enneagram Six Personality Type
7 Struggles of the Enneagram Six Personality Type
Loyal, hard-working, and skeptical, the Six enneatype likes to be prepared for a series of VERY unfortunate events. People with this enneatype easily imagine worst-case scenarios and make plans to circumvent them. Because there is underlying anxiety in the Six, they tend to seek out support, community, or wisdom from authorities as a way to find safety. If you know a Six, chances are you enjoy their offbeat sense of humor and loyal support. Chances also are you tend to tell them not to worry so much, or that things really won’t turn out as badly as they think they will.
Today we’re going to explore seven unique struggles that Sixes tend to face in life. I hope that this will provide solidarity for Sixes and insight for their friends and family members.
Not sure what your enneagram type is? Take our new personality questionnaire here!
What Are the Enneagram Sixes Struggles?
#1 – You Crave Authority, but Hate it as Well
As a six you often feel that the ground beneath your feet is unstable and breakable. Life feels uncertain and worst-case scenarios parade through your mind on a regular basis. As a result of this anxiety you crave a sense of authority or leadership in your life. You want someone to take the reigns and give you some reassurance about what to do, when to do it, or the meaning of life itself. At the same time, you’re skeptical of anyone who calls themselves an authority. You doubt people who seem self-assured and confident that their way is the one right way. Finding an authority you actually trust can be impossible because as soon as you find someone you like you start playing devil’s advocate to them.
The truth of the matter is that you need to learn to trust your own voice. This involves quieting down the “inner committee” of skeptics in your mind and actually finding your truth.
#2 – You’re a Perfectionist
You often feel a sense of insecurity about your relationships. You worry that if you fail in anything, the people you love will give up on you or reject you. Because this is such an enormous fear for you, you find yourself being overly-critical about all your endeavors. You also berate yourself over mishaps and mistakes, worrying that if anyone found out they’d reject you.
#3 – Uncertainty is the air you live and breathe
You doubt everything, including your doubts. On the outside, you may seem friendly, charming, good-humored, or even self-assured. But you’re not fooling yourself. Underneath all of that, you live on an ever-shifting cloud of uncertainty. You worry that you will screw up and ruin your relationships. You fear abandonment, rejection, being fooled, death, and everything that lies in-between. While many other types repress their fears or distract themselves from them, your fear seems to live face-to-face with you.
#4 – You Don’t Trust Yourself
In childhood, most Sixes were given the message, either directly or indirectly, that they shouldn’t trust their own instincts. As a result, you spend an inordinate amount of time looking for authorities, teachers, or institutions that you can trust. It might be a book about how to FINALLY get ahead, or it might be a pastor who puts your anxieties at ease. Maybe you’re a Six who decides to trust no one, including yourself, and live wild and free and terrified. Whichever path you choose, it’s beyond frustrating to not know where to look when an important decision needs to be made.
#5 – Your Thinking Goes in Circles
At average to unhealthy levels, your thinking and worrying only breeds more thoughts and worries. You wind up in a loop of unproductive fears, strategies, and questions. Rather than doing this, you need to face your fear of being without support or guidance. What if the worst happens? What if everyone leaves you? Then what do you still have? What resources can you still lean on? Let go of needing others to back up all your decisions. When you stop looking for outside solutions to every problem, and stop anticipating the worst, then you can become self-reliant, courageous, and brilliant in your thinking. This transformation can be shocking and profound to people who know you – and it’s an essential part of growth.
#6 – You Don’t Know How or When to Relax
As a Six, you feel like you’ll finally be secure when all your problems are solved and everything is prepared. When all the anxieties in your mind are put to rest, and all the tasks on your to-do list are completed, THEN you can relax. Unfortunately, as soon as you’ve solved one problem, a dozen more flow in to take its place! This can lead to never-ending workaholism, fear, and hyper-vigilance.
#7 – You Need Someone to Match Your Emotions
As a Six, you’re a reactive type. This means that when you experience difficulty, your immediate instinct is to respond emotionally – typically through fear or worry. Yes, you may be very rational and competent, but you still have an instinctive emotional response. Like Fours and Eights, you want someone to mirror the emotional reaction you’re having and provide solidarity. You want someone to match the intensity of your emotions as you’re having them. But the world isn’t made up of 4s, 6s, and 8s. Not everyone is going to respond that way. When your friends or family members respond calmly or even evasively to your problems or concerns, it can feel condescending or frustrating. The truth is, after you’ve had a chance to process your emotions out loud, you’re often able to move past them.
5 Ways for Sixes to Get Help With Their Struggles:
- Whenever you achieve a goal or accomplish a task, take a moment to breathe and notice something beautiful around you. Practice gratitude. Keep a notepad with you and jot down anything you can think of that you’re thankful for. The more you look for the positive things, the more thankful and resilient you will become.
- You long for a support network or a community that has your back. You also tend to worry about losing that support network. This can lead you to saying yes to too many requests or filling up your time with socializing and getting burned out. Learn to take time for yourself so that you don’t deplete your energy too severely.
- Try new things. As a Six, it can be easy to get stuck in a rut and feel afraid of change. It’s crucial for you to try new things – even if it’s just a different sandwich from your favorite restaurant. The more safe risks you can take, the more you’ll learn that the world isn’t as terrifying as you imagine it is.
- Realize how much time you spend worrying and catastrophizing. Notice how much time it takes away from the things you love or from being effective. Quiet your mind through meditation, deep breathing, or prayer. Talk to a therapist if needed. Get help for the swirl of fears and worries that are running freely through your mind. Capture them and store them away so that you can live a fuller, happier life.
- Learn to trust yourself. Other people don’t necessarily know better than you do about everything. Also, don’t let yourself get angry at them, even internally, when they don’t have the answers to the problems that are tormenting you. Realize that some answers just aren’t out there, and so you have to take some days and moments as they come. Practice being fully present in the moment.
What Are Your Thoughts?
Did you enjoy this article? Do you have any insights or suggestions to add? Let us know in the comments!
Find out more about your personality type in our eBooks, Discovering You: Unlocking the Power of Personality Type, The INFJ – Understanding the Mystic, and The INFP – Understanding the Dreamer. You can also connect with me via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Want to discover more about personality type? Get the inside scoop with Susan Storm on all things typological, along with special subscriber freebies, and discounts on new eBooks and courses! Join our newsletter today!
Thanks for the insight. Is your true name Susan Storm.? Or you living your career with a Marvel, superhero person.?
It’s my real name 🙂 Lol!!
This is 100% me, it’s crazy. Thanks!
I’ve known my MBTI type for years, and have always had doubts about the type accuracy (INFJ) .. mmm maybe I’m more INTJ, or INFP … . I have only just done my enneagram quiz and I find the 6 is amazingly accurate for me. This is really fascinating to read. What was the song – Roberta Flack “telling my whole life with his words”. 🙂
This is me fascinating I can really relate to it. I often struggle to relax but am slowly finding ways. I thought it was only me struggling with these issues but it’s nice to know I am not going crazy and that there are other people like me in this world. Thanks for the insight .
Type 6 is so much like me it’s almost unbelievable! Now I’m worried that at my age I’m too stuck in my ways to change. Any suggestions?
“Like Fours and Eights, you want someone to mirror the emotional reaction you’re having and provide solidarity. You want someone to match the intensity of your emotions as you’re having them.”
……… o_o I’m an 8 and…. that’s so true!! When I’m mad, I do everything I can to get the other one angry.. (and I’m sooo good at it, even with a type 2) Reading a book about the enneagram, I realised it was to make the masks fall and deal with the authentic person in front of me.. But yeah if I’m angry I need the other one to be angry, it’s probably not just the mask because it’s a deep serious “need” at the time.. Thank you for the new insight!!
Amazing article! Very useful and accurate, learning about mbti and enneagram types helped me a lot recently with finding solutions to my struggles, and I really appreciate articles written so accurately.
So, so true!! Even before I got into the enneagram (start of last year), I used to think that I was the only one in the world stuck in a blazing storm of anxiety.
I would refer to myself as an anxiety train wreck, but a rather speeding one. There is a strange paradox of having meltdowns (externally, and sometimes internally) to the extent I’m paralysed (even in thoughts), and racing thoughts, by which I mean catastrophising the end of the world and humanity.
Since early childhood, I received many comments—and criticism, as well—about how uptight I was, so unlike my carefree, outgoing sister, how I should be like that, shaming me into thinking hat I was a failure, and still am now. I suppose the part where I can’t seem to just relax is true.
Instead of actually completing the task at hand, vivid images of all the possible ways that the world will end would flash through my mind. The most common and consistent one involving atomic wars or a meteorite striking the Earth, causing mass destruction and burning everything in the path.
I would be stuck in the loop of analysis-paralysis, analysing the psychology behind my procrastination—the one definitive way I should go about doing it (to eliminate the possibilities of getting abandoned, unloved, neglected, rejected, and ultimately thought as a failure), as well as how I haven’t completed the task, what would happen if it stayed that way… But my horrible tertiary introverted thinking never yields any productive results. So annoying.
Imagine having a piece of work worth 30 minutes long, but you think your life and the universe depend on it, and thus procrastinating for up to hours at a time (like what I’m doing right now), getting in a great state of distress, and ultimately rushing that piece of work 30 minutes before the clock strikes 12. Oh, and did I mention the part of you taking thrice the time completing it because of your perfectionism? That’ll equate to sleeping at around… 1 in the morning daily? And don’t forget, it’s a school day. Yay! You’ve got to be totally looking forward to five to six hours of sleep, and getting booked for late coming. Again. Great! (I’m totally NOT exaggerating.) *Deliberate sarcasm intended (I’m not right now)*
At some point, I actually suspected that I had generalised anxiety disorder (I actually have two anxiety disorders already), but none of the descriptions and symptoms seem true to me in my case. (It’s high-functioning anxiety and maladaptive perfectionism.)
I deeply, dearly wish to spill my worries, fears, anxiety, insecurities and EVERYTHING bothering me out, but when—and if—I actually gather the courage to put them into words, and force them out of my mouth, I would just receive the signature blank gaze, like “What do you mean by that?? I seriously do not understand why you are constantly so tense and anxious about some TRIVIAL matter. Just get it done!! What’s the big deal? Then, you can CHILL!”
Part of me would buy into their crappy, insensitive comment—the part that represses and suppresses my emotions and state of mind, constantly denying them in favour of “logic” and pleasing others, though subconsciously viewing my opinions and thoughts as insignificant, because of the worthlessness I regard myself to. The other part would play Devil’s Advocate with them.
My instant reaction would be equated by those “equations” (that I have been attempting to solve—but failing to do so—my entire 14 minus one week years of life) to be: “You can’t possibly understand! If I do not complete this piece of work to ABSOLUTE perfection, the world and universe WILL cease to exist.” I would try my best to anger them—to match the intensity of my frustration at their complete lack of understanding, but to no avail. They would then give me the calm, emotionless façade, politely advising me to heed their advice on time management skills, and practising mindfulness, or some crap like that. Like, seriously, I know I totally suck at time management, but that’s not even the main problem!! It’s the constant worrying!
I know I either conform to societal norms, or completely rebel against them. My whole life, I’m conflicted between trust and distrust, loyalty versus building defensive walls all around me, authenticity and conformity. Even right now, I’m doubting everything I write. And when I take personality tests, they reflect the personalities of the people around me, rather than mine, and thus increasing the sensing aspect of the MBTI test, and thinking part (53 – 70+%— that’s if I’m being really honest and emotional at that time), as I hope to think myself as “rational”. (But deep down, I know I’m still an ISFJ with low levels (55%) of sensing—weird, I think.)
So there it goes. My anxiety life in words, but words cannot possibly sum up all that I’m facing; what I’m writing is just the tip of the iceberg. Try to spot the seven struggles here!
P.S. I would like to know if any other sixes are facing the problem of intense procrastination and anxiety on a daily basis. Please let me know. I’d appreciate that a lot 🙂 Thanks!
Also, I’m not writing this at 2am, if I’m right. It’s 4.30pm right here now.
Also, thank you so much for this post. It really helped me to understand myself better, and that I’m not alone in this 🙂 Thanks!!