If You're An Enneagram 5, Here Is The Self-Help Book You Should Read
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You leave no stone unturned, you don't mind working alone, and you're known for asking lots of questions. If those descriptions ring true, you may be an Enneagram Five, known in Enneagram numbers slang as The Investigator. The Enneagram is a personality test, and like other categorizing systems that work off your characteristics, such as the Myers-Briggs Test, knowing your Enneagram can help you maximize your best traits and work on your worst ones. Discover which Enneagram you are by taking the online test through the Enneagram Institute. Once you learn your specific Enneagram number, you can determine which types you're most compatible with, what your key motivations are, and the best avenues for reaching your goals.
If you happen to be an Enneagram Five, odds are you already have a stack of books ready to read the second you have the chance. However, if you're looking for another recommendation based on your personality as The Investigator, we've got you covered.
If you want to read about how and why we learn
Enneagram Fives are born truth-seekers and are in search of knowledge all the time. According to the Enneagram Institute, Enneagram Fives function on the "basic desire to be capable and competent." Keeping your brain occupied can help with its neuroplasticity, and the science behind the book, "The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers," is based on this notion. Dr. Norman Doidge — who is a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst — uses real-world stories of miraculous developments in the brain that have changed people's lives for the better to explore this concept in-depth.
In the book, you can learn how IQ scores go up, stress goes down, and how "lifelong character traits [are] changed" through the practice of neuroplasticity (per Amazon.com). If you're in search of a self-help book that will teach you more than a few simple tips to maximize your productivity, this book is the one for you. With lessons in neuroscience and human nature, you'll truly be investigating your mind, body, and the hows and whys behind them both.
If you're an introverted Investigator
At their best, Enneagram Fives can be true visionaries, fostering innovation by straying from the status quo and discovering new things. The independent nature of Enneagram Fives can sometimes come back to bite them, though, according to the Enneagram Institute. At "Unhealthy Levels," Fives can be "reclusive" and reject social interactions. If you tend to be more introverted and want to work on your ability to put yourself out there, let "Talking To Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know" by Malcolm Gladwell be your guide.
The New York Times bestseller of "Outliers" and "David and Goliath" felt that there was something off about how we're taught to interact with strangers. Using examples from history, Gladwell offers his guide on how to talk to strangers to avoid conflict and genuinely connect with one another instead. As an Enneagram Five, you'll likely enjoy all the fascinating history, psychology, and other snippets of facts included along the way.
If you want to live more in the moment
According to the Enneagram Institute, each Enneagram type has its own opportunities for growth. Often, Enneagram Fives spend so much time thinking, that they can often get distracted from actually going out and living their lives. The Enneagram Institute offers this advice for Type Fives: "Learn to notice when your thinking and speculating takes you out of the immediacy of your experience. Your mental capacities can be an extraordinary gift, but can also be a trap when you use them to retreat from contact with yourself and others. Stay connected with your physicality."
If you find yourself resonating with that advice and want to learn to live in the moment more, check out "The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact" by Chip and Dan Heath. In the book, the two writers describe how individuals have the ability to "author" their own experiences (per Amazon.com). Learning to appreciate even the briefest experiences is just as valuable as any other fact Enneagram Fives wish to know.