Ever noticed this? One moment you’re bumping along just fine, in another moment you are in melt-down and doing or saying things you later regret, and in yet another moment you feel like you are in a state of flow experiencing an at-one-ness or connection with Life that defies words.
Same you, radically different internal states and external actions. What gives? Let’s talk.
Before we do…
We are on a quest to define personal development.
The first way we looked at personal development was through the lens of adult development—a researched and scientific way of looking at personal development. Through that lens, we defined personal development as the process of “increasing mental complexity.”
Mental complexity doesn’t mean we are smarter (as in, IQ). Increasing mental complexity means we “construct reality” in a manner that is “more expansive, less distorted, less egocentric, and less reactive over time.” (The 3,000+ word post describing all that, is here.)
What would “more expansive, less distorted, less egocentric, and less reactive” look like? What would that look like for human beings in general? And, what would it look like for you? Is it possible to know these things to help us along our arc of personal development?
Yes!
The second way we will look at personal development is through the lens of the Enneagram, and more specifically, the Enneagram’s Levels of Development. The Levels of Development framework is a way of defining what “more expansive, less distorted, less egocentric, and less reactive” looks like. I think you will find this pretty darn cool. Let’s give it a go, shall we?
Before we start, here’s the punchline for this second ‘lens’ or way of defining personal development…
Personal Development is the process of increasing presence and therefore our state of awareness, which means becoming less identified with ego, and therefore, more free.
The degree to which we have accomplished this is our current Level of Development.
“Levels of Development” was developed by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson, Enneagram scholars, teachers, and authors. In this post, I’ll be drawing on my notes from trainings I’ve attended with them; Chapter 4—The Levels of Development from their book Understanding the Enneagram; and from my own personal experience in working with this framework in my own personal development as well as my experience in supporting clients in their development.
THE CONTINUUM OF THE LEVELS OF DEVELOPMENT
Let’s start really high-level and look at the labels which describe the nine levels of development—three “healthy”, three “average”, and three “unhealthy.” As you read through them, see if you can get a feeling for what each one might feel like, and what a person might be doing at each level. In other words, as we move up through the levels, what do you suppose is happening with the way we construct reality? Also, does it occur to you that as we move up the levels we might experience states of awareness where we are “more expansive, less distorted, less egocentric, and less reactive”?
HEALTHY
Level 1. Liberation [from ego]
Level 2. Psychological Capacity
Level 3. Social Value
AVERAGE
Level 4. Imbalance + Social Role
Level 5. Interpersonal Control
Level 6. Overcompensation
UNHEALTHY
Level 7. Violation
Level 8. Obsession-Compulsion
Level 9. Pathological Destructiveness
Do you find it interesting that the “Average” levels of development are described with words like Imbalance (the highest of average!), Interpersonal Control, and Overcompensation? I do, and the reason I do is because this is where most of us are. So, what is typical is this — most of us to operate from a place of imbalance (yikes!) on a good day, and perhaps trying to control others—interpersonal control—when we believe things are headed south (but of course our efforts to control them is for their own good). And if that fails, we start overcompensating, which means becoming more forceful, more manipulative, and more intense in our efforts to get them back in line and therefore get our way. That’s average, my friends, and that means it is typical. That’s the inconvenient truth.
Want more detail on what the above nine levels look like? Then you’ll want this: I’ve put together a one-pager that describes each of these levels, including what each level looks like in organizational life. While the labels above convey quite a bit, the one-pager is much more detailed and will help you hone in on what each level looks like. It was too much to include in this post, but you can grab your copy here.
SELF-DECEPTION
Are you above “average”? Do you think you’ve already reached those higher, healthy levels? If so, you wouldn’t be alone… almost everyone thinks they’ve reached those levels. However…
We over-assess the level at which we operate, usually by two levels. Sometimes three.That—again—is the power of self-deception. And it is one of the things that keeps us stuck. We can’t clearly see our level of awareness, and we can’t see the harm we cause. We justify our negative actions arising from being in the lower levels of average by believing our intentions lie in level 2. We make the false assumption our intentions lie in level 2, and therefore our behaviors align with that level. It isn’t true, we can’t see it, and what we can’t see, we can’t change. But it doesn’t have to go that way…
HIGHER LEVELS ARE A GOOD THING
The very first thing I hope you see about the levels is that working your way to the upper levels is preferable—for you, for others, and for the world around you. Those are the levels where we are more in rapport with our higher selves, more capable of compassion and unconditional love, more capable of discerning and taking right action, where we do more good and less harm, where we possess goodwill and the will-towards-good, and are best able to sense and to serve life!
Personal Development is moving up through the Levels of Development.
LET’S GET MORE SPECIFIC, SHALL WE?
Now that you’ve seen the levels in general, let’s get more specific. The Enneagram has nine personality types, and the levels of development have been mapped out specific to each type. This can be incredibly useful in your personal development efforts.
I don’t know your type, so in order to get more specific we will work with a personality virtually everyone is familiar with—Donald Trump. You and I have a lot in common with him (as we do with all other human beings), and I think looking at how his personality operates at the given levels of development may be quite illuminating…
Relax — this won’t be political. We’re just going to use one really famous person known to virtually all mankind as a concrete example of what is meant by “levels of development”.
What do we have in common with him? Three things (at a minimum)…
1. Ego. One thing Donald Trump, you, and I have in common is we all have an ego. Sure, each of our egos reacts differently in given situations. But he and you and I each have one.
2. Personality Type. Another thing the three of us have in common is each of us has a certain, predictable way of perceiving and reacting to the world, and that way is reflected in what is called our personality type. One of the reasons our three egos may operate differently given the same situation might be due to differences in our personality type. One way of looking at personality type is through the use of a model such as the Enneagram. We will use it here.
By the way, the Enneagram is a model of the human psyche which is principally understood and taught as a typology of nine interconnected personality types. Many Enneagram experts believe Trump’s personality operates like an Eight. Mine operates like a Seven. And if you don’t know yours, you can find out your type here or wait to the next post where I’ll talk you through that and more. (The Enneagram assessment will set you back 12 clams, none of the proceeds of which flow to yours truly and my beloved family.)
3. Level of Development. There’s a third thing all of us have in common—and this is a biggie. You now know what that biggie is—all three of us have reached a certain “level of development” which determines how egocentric we are and the distortions and behaviors that arise from that egocentricity. Trump, you, and I each are at one of the nine levels you reviewed above.
Our level of development significantly affects how our personality type expresses itself. The Enneagram shows how each of the nine personality types functions differently at each of the nine levels of development. That’s some pretty powerful stuff—far beyond what you can get from other personality style assessments like the DISC and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). To be able to get your hands on this type of information, and to use it, can really help you along your personal development arc.
Bottom line — and keeping this overly simple for illustrative purposes — one reason Trump, you, and I will act differently in the same given situation may be due to differences in our personality types and another reason may be due to our different level of development and therefore our level of awareness (presence) in that moment. Now let’s get specific…
GETTING SPECIFIC
Ok, let’s talk Donald Trump. As I said, most experts agree his behavior operates like an Enneagram Type Eight—The Challenger. Only Trump can know for sure—all the rest of us can do, including the experts, is to look at the way he appears to operate. (For our purposes, whether his type is an Eight or not doesn’t really matter: it works for illustrative purposes because here we are considering only his observable behavior.)
Here are the levels of development for the Eight. I’m pulling all this straight from Chapter 4 of Understanding the Enneagram by Don Richard Ruso and Russ Hudson.
Notice that while the labels given to the levels earlier in this post are general, now they are becoming more specific. For example, level 1 in general terms is the level of Liberation [from ego]. For Trump’s personality type, transcending his ego would mean embodying a magnanimous heart, and the quality of compassion. That’s his gift to give the world at the highest stage of development.
At level 6, the lower level of average that his type would tend to go when “triggered”, the general label is Overcompensation. For his particular personality, Overcompensation looks like the confrontational adversary, embodying the quality of belligerence.
Do you see how the general labels for each level become specific for his personality type?
Here’s what Understanding the Enneagram says about the the dynamics in the Levels of Development for the Eight, above…
“The movement of the Eight’s Continuum can be seen in the following abbreviated way: Eights progressively deteriorate from healthy heroic magnanimity, self-reliant strength, and courageous leadership… to average adventurous pragmatism, dominating expansiveness, and confrontational intimidation… to unhealthy ruthless aggression, reckless megalomania, and finally a vengeful destructiveness.”
If you think highly of Donald Trump’s behavior, you probably see in him in the “healthy” descriptions above. If you are ambivalent towards him, you probably perceive him more akin to the “average” descriptions above. And, if his behavior is keeping you up at night for fear of what he might do next, well, you probably perceive him approaching or in the “unhealthy” descriptions above.
While our perceptions may differ about which level Donald Trump is operating from, in reality he has one of those levels as his “center of gravity”—a level that he most often operates from. Only he can know for sure which that is. All the rest of us can do is to guess. The reality doesn’t matter for our purposes here because it is simply illustrative.
There’s more to know about the Levels of Development…
Situationally and temporarily, he (like you and me) can move up through the levels, or down through them. And this temporary upward or downward movement can occur in the blink of an eye. The resultant behavior of this rapid and temporary upward or downward movement is predicted in the above table. Yet when that good or bad situation dies down, he will return to his center of gravity, his default level of awareness, just like you and I do. This “home base” won’t change unless he is growing and evolving—personal development, as we’ve already said, is the journey up through the levels of development. And the higher up we move our home base, our center of gravity, the easier it is to hold our level of awareness stable.
The above is the simplest depiction of levels of development—the actual information available to him, you, and to me is much richer. For example, click here to see the above in much more detail yet still on one page. And there’s detail underneath even that. I’m telling you, the Enneagram is rich! And guess what?
In the next post, I’ll tell you how to determine your Enneagram Type if you don’t already know… AND I will provide the more detailed snapshot of the Levels of Development for your personality type, just like the one here for the Enneagram Type Eight.
EGO, PRESENCE, AND FREEDOM
Before we call it a wrap, let’s talk about how ego, presence, and freedom relate to the Levels of Development. It is fairly straightforward. In moving up through the levels:
- We are guided more by our Higher Self and driven less by our ego.
- We are more present and less driven by fear and misguided survival impulses and distortions.
- We experience more freedom and less constriction and rigidity.
Going back to our prior look at adult development, it should now be more clear that moving up through the levels of development involves becoming “more expansive, less distorted, less egocentric, and less reactive.” In other words, the Enneagram’s Levels of Development may be able to provide a more specific map regarding what “more expansive, less distorted, less egocentric, and less reactive” actually looks like for you and for me. Knowing this with some specificity, the journey upward may become a little more clear, a bit more understandable, and therefore more actionable and doable.
LET’S SUMMARIZE
- We are working on defining personal development.
- In the prior post, we borrowed from the science of adult development and defined personal development as the process of increasing mental complexity.
- In that definition, we seized on to concept that increasing mental complexity involves—among other things—becoming less ego-centric.
- Here in this post, using the Levels of Development from the Enneagram, we have illustrated what becoming less ego-centric might look like, and how it might affect how Donald Trump, you, and I “show up.”
- Further, we’ve stated why we might want to become less ego-centric (meaning, to do personal development)—we become more present, more free, and capable of doing more good and less harm.
- Lastly, we made the point (attempted to, anyway) that your Level of Development is actually more important than your personality type. In fact, per the Enneagram, you already have all nine types in you. The higher up the Levels of Development you go, the less identified you are with your ego and therefore your primary Enneagram type… the higher up you go, the best attributes and capacities of all nine types become available to you and start to flow through you.
- Becoming less ego-centric—moving up through the levels of development—involves becoming more present.
- This is one way you might define personal development, and I hope that inspires you.
WRAPPING UP
We opened this up by saying…
“Have you ever noticed? One moment you’re bumping along just fine, in another moment you are in melt-down and doing or saying things you later regret, and in yet another moment you feel like you are in a state of flow experiencing an at-one-ness or connection with Life that defies words.”
Now you have a possible explanation…
Depending on the situation, your ego and its rules (predicted by your personality type), how present you are, and therefore to what degree your ego is driving the show, you temporarily show up in and therefore experience a healthy, average, or unhealthy level of awareness. Your level of awareness—much more so than your personality type or the situation itself—determines whether you are in a state of flow (which requires presence), the average state of your everyday world (a nice day without presence), or experiencing great suffering and inflicting suffering (not a pretty picture).
The level of awareness you have generally, when things are “normal” for you, is your level of development. And, you can increase it. Further, you can learn to keep that level of awareness more stable so you aren’t darting up and down the levels in a way that leaves you (and others) dizzied and wondering which way is north for you.
That’s what personal development is—increasing awareness and stabilizing it at higher levels.
In the next post, I’ll take you through how to determine your personality type and give you my proprietary cheat sheets for seeing what your type looks like at the various Levels of Development. I think you will quite enjoy it.
Make it a good week.
Otis
P.S. There are prior posts in this series.
- Personal Development… Without Knowing What It Is?
- My Mission: Help You Better Understand Personal Development
- Personal Development, Defined
- Personal Development = Increasing Mental Complexity
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