You put your energy into getting things right, and being responsible and self-reliant. Your biggest strengths are having integrity, putting forth a lot of effort, being idealistic and highly responsible. You´re a keeper of high standards.
Being a Type 1 in the Essential Enneagram, a Perfectionist, is difficult because you are hard on yourself. You struggle to quiet your inner critic which causes you anxiety and worry. You need to learn to realize that you are perfect just as you are (complete and whole), that your worth and well-being is inherent and not dependent on being right or wrong.
Perfectionists are often described as „neat freaks“ and as inflexible. In fact, what you really adhere to as right or wrong depends on the content of your internal standards, which can vary greatly among perfectionists.
In love, you require a lot of reassurance that you are appreciated just as you are. You need your partner to encourage you to go easy on yourself and to take time for yourself. He needs to provide you with a non-judgemental viewpoint, and to remind you that the goal in life is to be human, not without fault.
You are likely to get attracted to Type 9 Personality, the Peacemaker. A peacemaker is a receptive listener, supportive and good-natured.
However, as you search for your life partner, remember that „the success of a relationship relies more on both partners` level of self-awareness and their ability to love and accept love through their specific love language“.
Therefore, type compatibility is more about having similar levels of self awareness than it is about personality type.
From the almost two-thousand women who took my What Type of Girlfriend Are You Quiz, only 4 % of them are Perfectionists. That means that of all nine personality types in the Enneagram, as my data indicates, Type 1 Perfectionist has the fewest
number of women.
This figure surprised me big time, to be honest, because I hear a lot about perfectionism. There are too many literature out there about being a perfectionist, but what I realized from my research is, you need to dig deep to know if one is
indeed a perfectionist.
What shaped your perfectionism?
Each of us developed one of the nine patterns to protect a specific aspect of the self that was threatened as our personality was developing (Daniels & Price, 2000).
When you were a child, the way your parents or caretakers raised you influenced the development of your perfectionism.
Growing up, you were a model child. You knew the rules and you religiously followed them. You constantly compared yourself to other kids – your successes, failures and mishaps. You asked a lot of questions about whether you´re doing things right, and you took responsibility for things that weren´t your fault.
Whether or not your caretakers welcomed your mistakes or constantly corrected you even in public, or shamed you for your mistakes, identifies your place in the perfectionism scale. Are you a healthy One or an unhealthy One?
You see the world as imperfect and you´re here to correct its imperfection. Driven by your inner critic who holds the bar too high, you constantly strive to correct what you perceive as wrong, and polish to perfection what you perceive as imperfect.
Being a Perfectionist you have many strengths. But your perfectionism has also its dark side which can negatively affect your relationships.