We´re in mid-December, and it´s time to start looking back at the year that´s now coming to an end. I have to say that 2025 has been a super busy year for me, both personally and professionally... But also, and probably for the same reasons, it´s been a tremendously rewarding year, one in which I believe I have grown and matured in many ways.

Professionally speaking, there are two highlights of this year for which I am incredibly thankful, and I´ll say it, also very proud. The first one I already told you in September: achieving my ACC certification.

The second one has been a whole journey of learning (and unlearning!) that began in January, and that I´m not going to say is just finished, because I´m sure I´m going to continue to learn... I´ve just completed the ATA – Awareness to Action training and certification program, delivered by Mario Sikora and María José Munita, of Awareness to Action International. And to me, this has meant finding a fundamental piece of my coaching project, integrating the Enneagram.

(Symbolic image of the three instinctual biases that are characteristic to Awareness to Action´s methodology: preservers, navigators and transmitters. Thanks Óscar for the drawings!)

If you´ve been reading this blog for a while, you may have seen me timidly mention the Enneagram on a few occasions; very few, if we take into account that I´ve been studying it in detail for three years now... And this hasn´t been due to a lack of interest, not at all: I find the Enneagram fascinating, I believe it´s an incredibly helpful tool for personal (and professional) development.

It´s been mostly due to a lack of confidence in my ability to explain it well, to be able to convey its full value without falling into superficial stereotypes (putting us all in boxes rather than setting us free) or overcomplicated explanations (confusing us even more instead of helping our understanding). And I´m sure there´s still more progress for me to make on this, but at least, today I can finally say that I have that confidence.

At this point, it´s good to clarify what we mean exactly when we say "the Enneagram". In the most literal sense, the Enneagram is a symbol named after two Greek words: ennea means "nine", and gram, "line", and indeed, this diagram is formed by nine lines, connecting nine points distributed around a circle.

This symbol is used as part of a personal development tool, called "the Enneagram of personality", which describes nine different personality profiles and the way they are interconnected following certain patterns.

Now, what not many people know is that there´s not a single fixed and static "Enneagram" as such, in the sense that it´s not a proprietary system of personality typing like DISC or MBTI (Myers-Briggs). In the Enneagram world, there are multiple approaches and schools of thought, some older and some more recent, that have been evolving and getting refined over time, in the same way the fields of psychology, philosophy and many other disciplines have been progressively evolving and building new approaches based on previous ones.

If we were to compare it with an operating system, for example, it wouldn´t be like Windows or Mac OS, but rather like Linux - open source, available for everyone to create their own versions, enhancements and contributions.

The thing is, one of the current problems we see with the Enneagram is that many people are learning it from books that were written many years ago, using certain concepts and ideas that are obsolete nowadays, and for which now we have better explanations, based on practical applications of the model over the years. Or even worse, they only get a partial version of those stereotyped concepts and ideas, in the form of hypersummarized descriptions and superficial jokes published on social media.

And to be honest, it´s a pity, because the Enneagram, when it´s well understood, well explained and well applied, is surprisingly powerful, both for its depth and its simplicity, and tremendously helpful for personal work, as well as for professional growth.

That´s why I´m so happy to have found an approach to the Enneagram that allows me not only to understand it in all its depth, but also to explain it in clear and simple terms, and to apply it to practical situations inside and outside my coaching practice. So, from January onwards, you can expect a lot more blog content on the Enneagram; I´ll explain the methodology behind Awareness to Action, or ATA, its different components and how they relate to each other.

Thanks a million again, Mario and María José, for your generosity over the last year, sharing your wisdom and the model you´ve built through many years of working in the field. Also, thanks Lee, Micky and Creek for your support, each of you in your own style and with your own perspectives, and thanks to all my classmates for the time we shared. And of course, I also want to thank Autognosis, the school where I got my Enneagram foundation in the first place: Alberto, Laura, Fernando, Rafa, Luis, Benoit, Ana B and Ana M. Thank you!