Coaching Through the Overwhelm Using Enneagram

"Our jobs as coaches is to help teachers develop self-awareness so they can have more clarity!!"
Allison Petersen

Coaching Through Overwhelm Using the Enneagram
If you didn't catch the last podcast episode, I'm encouraging you RIGHT NOW to pause here and go check it out! We know that the world of education is positively overwhelming right now. As instructional leaders, we have a deep urge to support our colleagues and help them get past this sense of being overwhelmed. Therefore, you'll notice the last podcast episode is prudently titled: "How to Coach People Through Overwhelm with Empathy and Practically". We want to give you practical ways to do this and that's what we're focused on in this post again today. 

In this podcast, I'm joined by Allison Petersen, Michelle Bulin, and Lindsey Babczak to dig deeper into the work of coaching educators through overwhelm. Allison Petersen is an Instructional Coach and Consultant and the founder of the #NewtoCoaching Facebook Group and The Breakthrough Circle, an exclusive coaching group. Michelle Bulin is Social Emotional Learning Coach and founder of SEL in the Middle. Our last guest in this podcast is the curator of the great tools and resources that are included below. Lindsey Babczak is a K-4 Instructional Coaching in Reading. She is a first year instructional coach and changing the world one conversation at a time!

These amazing coaches each bring something unique to the world of coaching, but they all center their work around understanding and using the Enneagram. This blogpost was written and podcast recorded so that YOU have strategies to equip yourself as you're working through your own overwhelm which will equip you to coach others through overwhelm.
The problem is that, whether you are a teacher leader or you are an instructional leader or administrator, obstacles get in the way of making change happen. Sometimes the obstacles come in the form of individuals remaining stagnant in a state of overwhelm that causes resistance, resentment, or restlessness.

What causes overwhelm??
One of the things that really could sum it up is this meme that we recently found of Louisa from Encanto.  

This character is trying to keep her perfect face up front, but under the surface, she is literally feeling all the pressures. It's funny... but it really is a great visual to define what we have found is going on with teachers right now: they're feeling extremely overwhelmed, they're feeling like they have to keep it all together, and they feel like they've got all these things they are managing.

Maybe it would even help to put a meme next to it with Ross from Friends screaming "pivot!!" What we need to be able to do, instead of sitting in the overwhelm and allowing it to crush us is pivot. I think we can agree that we want our fellow educators to be able to be their best and we don't want them to feel stuck and overwhelmed. So how do we help them with that?

It boils down to self-awareness...
Part of self awareness is really understanding who you are, where you come from, knowing your strengths and your weaknesses, and being able to make adjustments (pivoting if you will) and addressing those those things that make you who you are. It takes a bit of quite time, of really choosing, to be self reflective. Something that we have found extremely paramount in becoming self-aware and self-reflective in order to overcome overwhelm is the Enneagram.
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The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system that has come back and become a modern piece. Ian Morgan Cron's book, The Road Back to You gives a great deal of information about this personality typing system and is highly recommended. Basically, there are nine numbers on a circle that each represent a different personality type. What's important to note is that each type has an underlying motivator.

Click on the image to download this file! Each number is linked to details about the enneagram numbers!

• Type one is known as the perfectionist or reformer. They're usually ethical, dedicated, reliable and are motivated by the desire to live right and and improve the world.
• Type two's are the helpers. They're warm, caring, and giving and they're motivated by the need to be loved and needed. They are also very self sacrificing.
• Type threes are known as the performers or achievers. They are success oriented, image conscious, and wired for productivity. They're motivated by a need to appear to be successful and avoid failure.
• Type fours, which I hear are the rarest types are the romantics or individualists. They're creative, sensitive, and usually motivated by a need to feel understood.
• Type fives are investigators. They're very analytical, detached, sometimes private, and they really get a lot of energy from knowledge, so they love to learn in deep places.
• Type sixes are known as the loyalists. They're committed, practical, and witty but can be worst case scenario thinkers.
• Type sevens are the enthusiasts. They're fun, spontaneous and adventurous. They're motivated by this need to be free and happy and avoid avoid pain at all costs.
• Type eights are the challengers. They're commanding, intense, and comfortable with confrontation. They're motivated by a need to be strong and avoid feeling weak and vulnerable.
• Type Nines are peacemakers. They're pleasant, laid back and accommodating and they're motivated by a need to keep the peace at most times.

These numbers will start to give clarity to your personality, your why, and why you're why you're overwhelmed with things. Because the REAL FACT IS THIS: you have to be able to be self aware and self reflective before you can coach anyone else through their overwhelm. If you have not dealt with or do not know how to address your own overwhelm there's no way for you to effectively coach another.

When you do the Enneagram, it starts with the nine core numbers. These different numbers each have that core motivation and when you start coaching people at the level of core motivation, you get to real change. Simply getting to understanding your own Enneagram type can give you a sense of relief from overwhelm.

The whole idea of the Enneagram is that you would be able to change your behaviors so that you can really transform internally and become more whole. It's all about self awareness.

"I know my Enneagram... now what?"
Let's say that you have done this work: you know your Enneagram type, you reflect regularly, especially in seasons of overwhelm. How then do you know when you're ready to coach someone else through overwhelm?

We believe that you can coach anyone, anywhere, and through anything- even if you're not an expert on them! You can come in to a coaching partnership as an equal player and pour into them. When you have just a slight advantage on them because you have done some of the work first- you have started by understanding your number, you have read a little bit more about it, you've come to a little bit of self awareness- you're just three steps ahead of them and to us that's what coaching is! It's turning around and recognizing that what you've come through can be used to help another come through it, too!

Making use of the Enneagram to become self-aware and to self-reflect is just one little key that might unlock a huge door for you in your ability to coach teachers through overwhelm!