By Hillarie Kay

The key for you to overcome burnout is hidden within your own unique internal operating system. The way to connect with that internal operating system is through a personality framework called the Enneagram. How can a personality framework help you avoid burnout? Well buckle up, and get ready for a fun ride!

Unlike other personality tools (I’m looking at you Myer’s Briggs and Strengthsfinder) the Enneagram goes beyond your strengths and weaknesses and offers a comprehensive look at your internal operating system, emotional patterns, and more. 

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands.

That’s where the Enneagram can come in and be the self-development tool you need to reduce burnout. How can you stop yourself from burnout before it happens, or if you’re already in a burnout stage, how do you reverse it and  get back on a path to health? The Enneagram has so many helpful components to get to a place of awareness and ultimately correct that path! Here are 3 next best steps on how to use the Enneagram to fight against burnout.

1. Connect with yourself by learning about all five of your connection points within the framework.

This is where you will start to become aware of all the different facets of your personality, some of which fast-track you to burnout if not careful. As you’re learning about your connection points, write down the characteristics of each type. Awareness of our connection points allows us to create alarm bells in our brain which alert us we need to take action, either to keep going, or to halt to avoid burnout. So what are the connection points? 

Your Main Type.  This is the core type from which all the other connections come.  This brings awareness to your core motivating factor, fear and emotional pattern.

Connections two and three,  your wings.  Your wings help give you a more robust understanding of your personality type.

Connection four, your health type.  When you are in your health line, that means in addition to the everyday behaviors and patterns of your core type, you pick up the positive attributes of that type as well.

Connection five, your stress type.  When you are in your stress line, that means in addition to the everyday behaviors and patterns of your core type, you pick up the more negative attributes of that type as well.  These are the characteristics you need to be most aware of when trying to fight burnout.

2. Understanding how you best make decisions and take action.

We are constantly forced to make decisions and take action in our personal and professional lives- it can get overwhelming and stressful, and often the reason why people end up getting burnt out if they don’t have the proper skills and awareness of themselves. It’s called Decision fatigue.

Understanding how you best make decisions can help you achieve better flow in the decision making process. It’s this understanding that most people don’t realize can be brought to you through the Enneagram. The Enneagram is broken down into what’s called 3 intelligence centers, and these centers are where we get the information to help us best make decisions and take action.

There are three:  Head (logic), Heart (feeling) and Body (Intuition).

The Head Center.  This is for types 5, 6 and 7.  These types do best when they take action or make decisions by observing the world.  They do best when they rely on logic and reasoning to help them work toward a solution.  Positive ways to use the head center are to gather information, generate ideas, engage in mental processing, Rational analysis and planning. 

The Heart Center.  This is for types 2, 3 and 4.  These types do best when they take action or make decisions with their feelings or emotions.  They do best when they rely on their emotions, memories, images and dreams to help them work toward a solution. Positive ways to use the heart center is to experience feelings, relate to others emotionally and be sensitive to the feelings and reactions of others.

The Body Center (this is also referred to as the gut).  This is for types, 8, 9 and 1.  These types do best when they rely heavily on instinct and intuition. They do best when they allow themselves space to become present with a situation and reduce any potential anger to help them work toward a solution. They use the body center in response to the emotion of anger.  The body center is best used when the person can move around to think, experience physical sensations and when in control of their environment.

3. Turn awareness of your personality into action steps.

Having an awareness of the things we’ve talked about is one thing, but applying the knowledge is something completely different. The application of the knowledge is where the real self-development takes place and how you can overcome burnout. YOU are the key to your success. You have everything you need, right inside you.  It’s just about learning how to access it.  

When you realize you’re in burnout, here are the questions you can ask yourself to help you overcome burnout and apply what you know!

Question 1: What can your health line’s strengths bring to the table?

Question 2: How can your intelligence center and the intelligence center of your health type help you?

Question 3: What can the strengths of your wings bring to the table to help compliment your core type and offset the challenging traits?

To help you get started in learning how to answer these questions and apply the knowledge, here is an example using type 6. 

Type 6:

• Engage 5 wing: Work on containment of thoughts
• Engage 7 wing: Engage in a fun activity that is out of your comfort zone
• Engage 9 health line: Experiment with going with the flow

Just like anything else, using the Enneagram to help fight burnout takes practice, and practice makes progress!

To learn more about fighting burnout you can download Chapter 4: Fighting Burnout for free from my book Unlock Your Potential at Work: A Beginner’s Guide to Using the Enneagram at Work by clicking HERE.