Stress refers to the reaction of individuals after they go through different phases of tension and pressures in life. It can severely hamper the smooth functioning of individuals. The same applies to Enneagram Eight personality type people. Hence, identifying the stress triggers of enneagram 8 can help them deal with stress better.

If you do not have clarity about your personality type, take the enneagram personality test. It is the Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator, which can let you know your enneagram type. Various factors can create stress among different enneagram personality types. Enneagram 8s suffer from the same when they do not get importance in their life and face challenging situations.

In the following article, we will discuss in detail the factors which make Enneagram 8s suffer from stress. We will also discuss the measures they can take to handle stressful circumstances.

Stress Triggers of Enneagram 8

The stress triggers of enneagram 8 refer to all types of factors that result in stress, anxiety, and tension among these individuals while carrying different responsibilities in their personal and professional lives. They make an adverse impact on their overall well-being.

An Enneagram 8 person is naturally confident and has the requisite charisma to fulfill their responsibilities. They are not ready to take no for an answer. People often find themselves taking up leadership positions.

People with enneagram eight personality types have the ability to inspire others by letting them gain strength and endurance. Everything goes well until they start feeling there is a threat to their potential to lead and protect. Once that happens, they come under stress. When we develop a link between Enneagram 8s and Myers Briggs types, they can correlate easily with the ESTJ personality type.

Despite having a straightforward approach, eights tend to have an intimidating effect on others. These people find it difficult to admit that they are wrong. Challengers as eights are so called, belong to Enneagram’s Body Group. Type One and Type Nine are other personality types that complete this group. They carry a special relationship with their gut feeling.

Several stress triggers appear in an Enneagram 8 personality type individual. It is time to talk about the stress triggers that create problems in their personal and professional lives.

1. When Someone Tries to Restrict Their Freedom

Earlier in the article, we discussed the natural leadership ability that Enneagram 8 possesses within itself. They love taking complete charge of their situations. Therefore, they hate if any individual tries to restrict their natural tendency. This individual will also not like if anyone starts directing them about how they must lead their lives.

Whenever enneagram 8s face these situations in their lifetime, they come under stress and tension. They feel like someone is trying to make them do something against their will.

2. If Anyone Makes Them Feel Unimportant

People with enneagram eight personality types have a natural inclination toward leading groups. They enjoy making others follow in their footsteps and guiding them in their life path. Invariably, they make others respect them and act as they want.

There are scenarios when these individuals might not obey the suggestions and opinions of Enneagram 8 personality type individuals. In these situations, these people can come under stress and feel an adverse impact on their lifestyle.

3. Facing Vulnerable Situations

Enneagram type 8 personalities always need everything to be under their complete control. They have the eagerness to handle leadership roles. Unfortunately, life does not always give us whatever we want. It gives us what we need.

Therefore, these people also come across emotional scenarios that are not ideally suited for Enneagram 8s. It is because these individuals are not adept at handling emotions. Hence, all these individuals experience a lack of power and feel stressed when they need to address emotional circumstances.

4. Feeling of Hopelessness

Enneagram 8 personality type people like to lead. They always want complete control in their lives. Despite their inclination toward it, things do not always go according to plan. Those are the scenarios when they need to re-adjust their thoughts and overall outlook toward life.

They can confront several moments in their lives where a feeling of hopelessness might disturb their thinking pattern and their lifestyle. These individuals may need help understanding what they must do to face and overcome this situation.

Then, these enneagram 8s can come under stress. They can put themselves under tremendous pressure while gathering their thoughts and ideas.

5. Receiving Unnecessary Blame from Others

In life, anyone would hate getting blamed for someone they have not done. While one group would ignore those unwanted talks, another one comes under extreme stress and tension. It will hamper their lifestyle to a great extent. Enneagram 8s belong to the second group.

Eights are upfront in nature and never hide their feelings from others. Hence, they cannot stand all those individuals who will not think hard before saying something about them that carries no substance.

6. Getting Micromanaged

An Enneagram 8 personality type individual loves freedom and doing things their way. They have the natural tendency to lead others and make them follow their instructions. Now, it is not possible when this person works in an office. There will be a boss, a project manager, who would want the type eight to work as per the needs of the organization. It is what causes the problem within the Challenger.

They need to make up their mind about being in an environment where there are superiors about following their instructions. The mere thought of it can put them under severe stress. It becomes difficult for them to convert their mindset from a leader to a follower.

7. Seeing No Chance of Progress Toward a Goal

An enneagram eight personality type attaches all their work toward fulfilling a goal. They need to find a purpose behind the effort they are putting in regularly. They cannot get the much-needed motivation to keep working hard if there is no chance of progressing toward the objective.

Moreover, they will start feeling completely at a loss. They have nothing constructive to look forward to with anticipation. Slowly but surely, the enneagram eight person will not manage to concentrate on their work as they would suffer from stress. They will keep contemplating different options, which they can avail to get the right results.

8. They Cannot Stand Failure

Enneagram 8s want to see success at any cost. It applies not only to themselves but also to others. If these people carry out responsibilities, they ensure their work produces the right results. They have similar expectations from people working under them. While undertaking the role of a leader, they want their subordinates to perform and achieve the organization’s goals.

As we have mentioned earlier, things do not always pan out the way we want. Hence, even after a wholehearted effort into fulfilling their goals, one may not get results as per expectations. Under those situations, enneagram 8s would start suffering from stress.

9. Being Around Indecisive People

Another factor that can get eights stressed out is being around people who cannot decide and take a firm stand while making decisions. Challengers feel these individuals are nothing but hurdles in their path toward progress. They are confident and assertive. Hence, these people would always love spending most of their time with those having similar mentalities.

When indecisive people are around them, eight always remain in apprehension. They do not know what to expect from their companions. There is always a threat that their plans might go haywire in no time. These negative thoughts are enough to make them suffer from stress.

10. Having to Cover Up Things

Enneagram 8s are open-minded. They do not fear expressing their opinions and calling spade-a-spade. Just like they will appreciate good things in their life, similarly, these people will not hesitate to raise their voices against all those aspects they do not like. Still, there are occasions when they get forced to cover things up and not disclose crucial information to keep their promise to someone.

Eights do so against their will. Neither their heart nor their mind permits them to do so. It will be a source of stress and tension for these individuals. They will keep thinking of all the consequences that their cover-ups might invite in their lives.

11. Staying in a Corrupt Environment

Stress can appear in the life of an Enneagram 8 if they must cope with all those individuals who make the environment corrupt. People with these personality types focus on maintaining truth and justice. They can never exchange being honest with anything else.

Hence, whenever they see corruption around, it makes them feel jittery. They fear those corrupt individuals might face dire consequences sooner rather than later.

12. Unable to Face Challenges in Life

People with enneagram eight personality types enjoy facing different kinds of challenges in their lives. The motivation level of these individuals increases when they can overcome challenging circumstances and reach their goals. It gives them great joy while managing to do so successfully.

Eights begin to suffer stress and tension when their lives are devoid of challenges. They feel there is a significant amount of void in their life. No thrill or excitement can inspire them to do something they like.

How Will Enneagram 8 Cope with Stress?

Like any other individual in this world, when an Enneagram 8 personality type individual confronts stressful circumstances, they act differently and adopt specific behavioral patterns.

We have already discussed earlier in this article about the stress triggers of enneagram 8. Their actions and reactions become opposite to their usual traits. Eights make other individuals feel they are only a shadow of themselves.

When Enneagram 8s are at their best, they always ensure that they offer ideas for those under oppression. Their confident leadership style is the driving force for various communities around them. They use their energy and level of commitment to bring about massive improvement for themselves and society.

It is time for us to discuss self-help strategies that Enneagram 8s can adopt to manage stress and resolve problems completely.

1. Focus on Body Movement

Stress can severely hamper the free-flowing lifestyle of an enneagram 8. It can become a hurdle in progress toward meeting life’s objectives. Still, they can come out of the same by adopting measures. One of them is to focus on their body movement.

They should refrain from fulfilling any objective in their life. Moving the body can help them release their negative energy in no time. It is one of the most immediate and regular ways to manage stress and find peace.

2. Get in Touch with a Trusted Individual

An individual with an enneagram eight personality type can look to get in touch with a trusted person to share their thoughts. They can let them know what they are currently going through in life. Identifying that person is extremely important. The person can be one of their parents, sibling, friend, or another person in their personal or professional circuit.

Expressing their thoughts to any of these individuals can do them a world of good and help them relax. They can receive valuable inputs and implement them to find better ways of handling stress.

3. Take Some Out of Their Daily Routine

Another way through which enneagram 8s can get relief from stress is by taking some time out from their daily routine and spending quality time with themselves. It will allow them to gather their thoughts. Gradually, they can introspect about what had gone wrong, which caused stress.

They can read motivational books, exercise, listen to music or do anything else that attracts their attention. Taking their mind away from regular activities and doing stuff that makes their minds fresh can get them out of stress very soon.

4. Indulge in Doing Some Creative Work

People with this personality type can indulge themselves in various creative activities. They can surely make them feel much better. Therefore, they can get back their peace and happiness. Creativity will enable enneagram 8s to use their multiple senses. It will let them live in the moment.

It will go a long way toward shifting their focus from all the negativities surrounding their lives and concentrating only on the positives. These people can invest time into some of their preferred hobbies. Hence, they can spend time playing video games, volunteering, and blogging, which ensures they remain stress-free.

5. Remind Themselves of All the Positives in Life

Enneagram 8s can handle stress better and gradually get rid of this problem if they shift their focus toward the positive aspects of life. They must understand that every cloud has a silver lining. Hence, there is absolutely no need to get perturbed by adverse circumstances that keep coming their way now and then.

The Challenger needs to remind themselves that no matter how bad a situation is in their life, there is always something positive they can take out from the same. Hence, they never lose hope, concentrate on the positives, and wait for things to improve.

Final Words

Enneagram 8s love to control their environment and the people staying in it. They enjoy inspiring others to do things that would help them achieve their objectives in personal and professional arenas. These people always look forward to challenges.

Stress impacts their personality whenever they lose grip over their life, someone starts ordering them to work as per their liking, and when situations force them to spend time with corrupt people.

Finally, we have also discussed some ways through which these individuals can get relief from stress and lead fun-filled lives. They include paying attention to body movement, talking to a trusted person, spending quality time with themselves, realizing that they can focus on the positives, and gaining confidence to come out of tricky situations.