The 5 Human Design Energy Types

Your human design energy type tells you the best way for you to use your energy - to hit your goals, manifest, and create what you want in a way that right and ease-filled for YOU.

If you know nothing else in human design, you should understand your energy type/strategy. This alone could deeply change your life!

There are 5 energy types: Reflector, Projector, Manifestor, Manifesting Generator, and Generator (Check your chart to see which one you are). 

A few key terms:

STRATEGY – The way for you to use your energy most successfully, according to your type.

SIGNATURE – What you will feel when you follow your strategy (i.e., the good feeling that lets you know you are operating according to your design).

NOT-SELF THEME – What you will feel when you DO NOT follow your strategy (i.e., the crappy feelings that tell you you’re trying to work against your design). Basically, when you’re not being yourself.

MANIFESTORS (8-9% of population)

Set fire to the rain, and also, to everything else.

Strategy: To Inform

Signature: Peace

Not-Self Theme: Anger

Manifestors are here to be the big-time “sparkers” of the world, and are responsible for getting energy moving. In the past, they were the pharaohs, the warrior kings, the monarchs (at least, not the prissy ones that ate macarons all day). 

Basically… they’re supposed to start shit. 

If you are manifestor, you’re mean to act on impulses + let others know (inform them) of what you’re doing, so they don’t get in the way.

By telling people what you’re going to do, you will actually meet less resistance and be more effective in whatever you’re trying to achieve. 

GENERATORS + MANIFESTING GENERATORS (70% of the population) 

Strategy: To Wait To Respond

Signature: Satisfaction

Not-Self Theme: Frustration

Anyone with their sacral center defined is a generator (like me, weeee!). 

There are two types of generators: pure generators and manifesting generators. I treat them as different energy types, but technically they’re both subtypes.

Pure Generators (35% of population)

You get sacral energy! You get sacral energy! EVERYBODY GETS SACRAL ENERGYYYYYYYYY!

Generators are the great workers of the world. The reason is we are the only type with defined sacral centers (explained further down), which means we are the only ones with consistent access to life force energy. 

Buuuut we are not here to do just any work – we are here to do work we LOVE.

Generators make the very energy that the world lives in, and we do it by doing what lights us up. When we create that energy, we become super productive – and everyone else gets to use the “overflow” to power their lives, too.

Generators access the nearly endless energy of the sacral center by waiting to respond – essentially, following the things that our gut says HELL YES to and rejecting the things that it says NO or “EH” to.

Manifesting Generators (35% of population)

Henry Rollins: punk rock frontman, spoken-word performer, photographer, traveler, author, podcaster, and my all-around favorite crazy person. I would have let him throw a beer bottle at me in the 80s.

MGs are pretty much exactly what they sound like: a combo of pure generators and pure manifestors. They have more of a get-up-and-go tendency, like manifestors. If pure generators are marathon runners, manifesting generators are sprinters. 

They tend to be multi-passionate, dynamic, explorative, and not the sort to fit into a “box.”

PROJECTORS (10% of the population)

The ‘bams. OG projector.

Strategy: To Wait For The Invitation

Signature: Success

Not-Self Theme: Bitterness

Projectors are here to be humanity’s guides by sharing their wisdom with us. 

They have crystal clarity, for both themselves and others. They’re here to be recognized for that incredible clarity (again, by others and by themselves). Projectors are the kind of people who can walk into a situation and see what others cannot see – making them the ones who go, “Uh, yeah, there is a MUCH better way to do this.”

This becomes a problem, though, when projectors share their wisdom in a way that people didn’t ask for — which can feel like unsolicited advice to the listener and lead to feeling unseen or ignored for the projector.  

To avoid this, projectors must Wait for the Invitation, or rather, recognize the right invitation. 

REFLECTORS (1% of Population)

Yeah, I know. Who’d have thought.

Strategy: To wait a Lunar Cycle (28 days)

Signature: Surprise

Not-Self Theme: Disappointment

Reflectors have NONE of their centers defined, and as a result, they are ultra-receptive to the energies around them. 

They reflect humanity and how things are going in their environment, so whether or not reflectors are healthy is a good sign that the world is on the right path. They’re also highly chameleonic – they’re meant to change how they appear + feel, frequently!

While all the other energy types are connected to the sun, reflectors are innately connected and receptive to the power of the moon. That’s why their strategy is “to wait 28 days”… their action/decision-making process is based on the lunar cycle.