For work I had to do a communication course and MBTI was 1 part of the course. I had to do the official MBTI questionnaire and was told about the 4 dimensions and the difference between the 4 families in typology (SJ, SP, NT, NF) in the way they communicate. And I have to admit, this course is so much more clear and so much more practical usable than all the stuff I have read on the internet.
So I did the questionnaire and came out as ISFJ with a solid I and F, a moderate J and a very low S. Because my S was so low, the teacher gave me both the explanation of ISFJ as that of INFJ. And since I had no feeling with the ISFJ explanation while I got tears in my eyes when reading the INFJ's, I assume I'm INFJ. This would also explain the moderate J since I believe that NJ's are less ferm in the judging field than ISFJ's.
my group of 12 people included 9 SJ's, 2 SP's, 1 NF and no NT's. No wonder that I feel like an alien most of the time at work
But what I really wanted to share here with you is the explanation I got about INFJ, which is for me so much more recognizable and practical usable than what I read on the internet. It probably contains many spelling mistakes since I'm translating it from Dutch
INFJ
I
As an introvert you like predictability but on the other hand get easily bored by routine.
J
as a judging type you have no problem with making decisions and in crisis you immediately know what to do.
Ni
You live, more than any type, in a world of ideas concepts and theories. You are a self assure, individualistic thinker. You judge the reality from the inside out based on your feelings and intuition. You are able to see connections between events and circumstances even though at first hand they seem to have nothing in common. You see the possibilities and the steps needed to reach your goal and bring your ideas into practice. You believe in yourself and your capabilities. You enjoy solving complex problems and to do so you use your resourcefulness and talent to see connections. Sometimes you are so preoccupied with what is possible in the future, on long term, that you forget the reality here and now. Connections and things in the present seem unimportant to you. Therefore it would be better to improve your touch with reality (sensing) and use your five senses to check your ideas with concrete facts. Working together with types that are more practical oriented and be receptive to there ideas and opinions. It is also to improve your extraverted judging side so that you can be more social functional. In order to realize your ideas it is important to sell them to the outside world and therefore interpersonal skills are very important.
In everything you do you are aware of the past, the present and the future. This makes you a visionair. You will always seek for the cause of everything.
Fe
your auxiliar function is Fe. This function helps you to deal with the outside world.
You are very interesting in everything that can help people in self-realisation. When working towards a goal you will always take into account the needs and ambitions of the people involved. The meaning of relationships, the meaning you have for others, the influence you have on others and the meaningfulness of your job are themes that are very important to you. Persons like you tend to have a great influence on others but mostly unnoticed from behind the scenes.
your temperament: NF
The combination of intuition and feeling is the base of your idealism and your seeking for the truth. You spend much time into self-knowledge and self-cultivation. You are always searching for your true identity and internal peace. Your relationships are based on authenticity. You want to be connected to your self and to others. Ethical values, meaningfull job, empathic relationships and self realizations are key.
For an intuitive feeling person it is not only important to be accepted by others but more to be accept AS YOU ARE, without a facade, without good appearances. You really hate dishonesty and manipulation
relationships and people are really important for you. You always try to be understanding towards others and expect the same from others. But it takes time for you to trust others enough to show them your inside world and be vulnerable. It hurts you that only a few people understand what a deep meaningful relationship is and are willing to have such a relationship with you. You only have a few friendships but they are calm, intense, deep, and long lasting. And when your friend needs you, you are always there. Your deep and calm relationships gain you respect from your extraverted friends but they don't understand this kind of friendships. On the other hand it is difficult for you to understand their need for short supperficial friendship and the fact that they are not personal engaged on the long term.
You are always scanning for underlying meaning and motivations in the behavior of others. You observe people very closely and tries to "feel" all nuances to their emotions. You understand why people act the way they do and what their ambitions are. You see the feelings, values and believes of others sometimes even faster than they do themselves. The fact that you are so alert and empathic can be a great benefit to your job. You know how to convince people because you know what is important to them. Your empathy can be so intense that you can even feel the physical and emotional ups and downs of the people around you.
Harmony in your personal surrounding is very important to you. You always try to maintain the peace, mutual support and collaboration. You are very good in supporting people and you know how to make them appreciated. You also need positive appreciation from others. You want to appreciated for who you are and you need positive feedback. For you it is difficult to give negative feedback to others even when it is justified and needed to improve that person.
Without harmony and meaningful relationships you will lose your enthusiasm and self-confidence. You have a strong feel for justice and values are really important to you. You could never do something that would be against your values or what you not believe in. Because you project your values to the mostly unpersonaly outside world, you take conflicts very personaly. Your feeling makes that you feel hurt, your intuition makes real and imaginary blame very painful and your judging makes that you become angry and seek the problem in others. Because you are an introvert you will keep those feelings of anger and hurt inside until they become unbearable and you burst.
When you see this pattern of behavior with yourself, try in the first place to realize that not everybody is so sensitive and in tune with the feelings of others as you are. Try to understand that it is very well possible that the other person did not intend to hurt you. So give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that their hurtful behavior was a mistake. Also understand that keeping your feelings of anger and hurt inside will not help them adjusting their behavior towards you. But try to let them know that you would appreciate it if they would be more sensitive towards you. For a type like you it is often hard to cultivate some sense of reality when it comes to relationships. Aiming for the ideal is ok but understand that you will probable never reach the ideal. Understand that people could disappoint you and not always live up to your expectations.
Se
when you are distressed or out of balance your inferior function Se will come to the foreground and you can start showing behavior that is very "unlike you".
stress situations could be conflicts
unpersonal or cold behavior towards you
being confronted with too much detail
pushed into to much extraversion
an environment that is unknown to you
unexpected events
when you make mistakes with facts
when in stress you will show the following behavior:
loosing your global view
compulsive attention for unimportant details
attempt to control your environment: cleaning the house, reorganizing your CD's, ...
to immersed in sensory pleasure: to much drinking, eating, television without enjoying it
seeing the world as hostile, afraid of being left alone
expecting the worst outcome
getting easily angry
negative vision
what to do to regain your balance
change your environment: taking a walk, ...
crying, watching sad movies, it makes you realize your less serious, sensitive side
talking with people that show compassion and understanding
As an intuitive feeler it is important to keep in touch with reality. Make sure that your visions and ideas remain realistic. Don't put too much believe in your intuition, hunches and don't jump to conclusions when it comes to hidden meaning and underlying motives but check if they are real and not imaginary. For many introvert intuitives it is relaxing to enjoy sensory experiences like eating, exercise, working in the garden, ... Others escape from their dominant and auxiliary function by reading an adventure roman. It seems to be very effective to stop the internal focus for a moment and enjoy (indirectly) adventures in the outside world. Use sensing as recreation.
tips and tricks:
- try to take leadership ad work. Although it is hard for you to give negative feedback, you would do very good in a leading position since you are sincere concerned with the feelings of others and try to get the best out of people. You could do wonders with a small close team
- don't expect relationships to be ideal
- be more ambitious and try to expand your social circle
- try to be more controlled and less defensive in your behavior and try to be more diplomatic, this will create more acceptance of your ideas
- try to delegate more and give negative feedback when needed
- don't jump to conclusions
- spend some time every day for meditation and reflection
- accept that you are not responsible for everything and everyone
- spend some time every day to reflect about "what could be possible" and enjoy it. By doing so you will get less easily depressed about the concrete demands of reality
- check your visions and hunches with others
- enjoy sensory experiences
So I did the questionnaire and came out as ISFJ with a solid I and F, a moderate J and a very low S. Because my S was so low, the teacher gave me both the explanation of ISFJ as that of INFJ. And since I had no feeling with the ISFJ explanation while I got tears in my eyes when reading the INFJ's, I assume I'm INFJ. This would also explain the moderate J since I believe that NJ's are less ferm in the judging field than ISFJ's.
my group of 12 people included 9 SJ's, 2 SP's, 1 NF and no NT's. No wonder that I feel like an alien most of the time at work
But what I really wanted to share here with you is the explanation I got about INFJ, which is for me so much more recognizable and practical usable than what I read on the internet. It probably contains many spelling mistakes since I'm translating it from Dutch
INFJ
I
As an introvert you like predictability but on the other hand get easily bored by routine.
J
as a judging type you have no problem with making decisions and in crisis you immediately know what to do.
Ni
You live, more than any type, in a world of ideas concepts and theories. You are a self assure, individualistic thinker. You judge the reality from the inside out based on your feelings and intuition. You are able to see connections between events and circumstances even though at first hand they seem to have nothing in common. You see the possibilities and the steps needed to reach your goal and bring your ideas into practice. You believe in yourself and your capabilities. You enjoy solving complex problems and to do so you use your resourcefulness and talent to see connections. Sometimes you are so preoccupied with what is possible in the future, on long term, that you forget the reality here and now. Connections and things in the present seem unimportant to you. Therefore it would be better to improve your touch with reality (sensing) and use your five senses to check your ideas with concrete facts. Working together with types that are more practical oriented and be receptive to there ideas and opinions. It is also to improve your extraverted judging side so that you can be more social functional. In order to realize your ideas it is important to sell them to the outside world and therefore interpersonal skills are very important.
In everything you do you are aware of the past, the present and the future. This makes you a visionair. You will always seek for the cause of everything.
Fe
your auxiliar function is Fe. This function helps you to deal with the outside world.
You are very interesting in everything that can help people in self-realisation. When working towards a goal you will always take into account the needs and ambitions of the people involved. The meaning of relationships, the meaning you have for others, the influence you have on others and the meaningfulness of your job are themes that are very important to you. Persons like you tend to have a great influence on others but mostly unnoticed from behind the scenes.
your temperament: NF
The combination of intuition and feeling is the base of your idealism and your seeking for the truth. You spend much time into self-knowledge and self-cultivation. You are always searching for your true identity and internal peace. Your relationships are based on authenticity. You want to be connected to your self and to others. Ethical values, meaningfull job, empathic relationships and self realizations are key.
For an intuitive feeling person it is not only important to be accepted by others but more to be accept AS YOU ARE, without a facade, without good appearances. You really hate dishonesty and manipulation
relationships and people are really important for you. You always try to be understanding towards others and expect the same from others. But it takes time for you to trust others enough to show them your inside world and be vulnerable. It hurts you that only a few people understand what a deep meaningful relationship is and are willing to have such a relationship with you. You only have a few friendships but they are calm, intense, deep, and long lasting. And when your friend needs you, you are always there. Your deep and calm relationships gain you respect from your extraverted friends but they don't understand this kind of friendships. On the other hand it is difficult for you to understand their need for short supperficial friendship and the fact that they are not personal engaged on the long term.
You are always scanning for underlying meaning and motivations in the behavior of others. You observe people very closely and tries to "feel" all nuances to their emotions. You understand why people act the way they do and what their ambitions are. You see the feelings, values and believes of others sometimes even faster than they do themselves. The fact that you are so alert and empathic can be a great benefit to your job. You know how to convince people because you know what is important to them. Your empathy can be so intense that you can even feel the physical and emotional ups and downs of the people around you.
Harmony in your personal surrounding is very important to you. You always try to maintain the peace, mutual support and collaboration. You are very good in supporting people and you know how to make them appreciated. You also need positive appreciation from others. You want to appreciated for who you are and you need positive feedback. For you it is difficult to give negative feedback to others even when it is justified and needed to improve that person.
Without harmony and meaningful relationships you will lose your enthusiasm and self-confidence. You have a strong feel for justice and values are really important to you. You could never do something that would be against your values or what you not believe in. Because you project your values to the mostly unpersonaly outside world, you take conflicts very personaly. Your feeling makes that you feel hurt, your intuition makes real and imaginary blame very painful and your judging makes that you become angry and seek the problem in others. Because you are an introvert you will keep those feelings of anger and hurt inside until they become unbearable and you burst.
When you see this pattern of behavior with yourself, try in the first place to realize that not everybody is so sensitive and in tune with the feelings of others as you are. Try to understand that it is very well possible that the other person did not intend to hurt you. So give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that their hurtful behavior was a mistake. Also understand that keeping your feelings of anger and hurt inside will not help them adjusting their behavior towards you. But try to let them know that you would appreciate it if they would be more sensitive towards you. For a type like you it is often hard to cultivate some sense of reality when it comes to relationships. Aiming for the ideal is ok but understand that you will probable never reach the ideal. Understand that people could disappoint you and not always live up to your expectations.
Se
when you are distressed or out of balance your inferior function Se will come to the foreground and you can start showing behavior that is very "unlike you".
stress situations could be conflicts
unpersonal or cold behavior towards you
being confronted with too much detail
pushed into to much extraversion
an environment that is unknown to you
unexpected events
when you make mistakes with facts
when in stress you will show the following behavior:
loosing your global view
compulsive attention for unimportant details
attempt to control your environment: cleaning the house, reorganizing your CD's, ...
to immersed in sensory pleasure: to much drinking, eating, television without enjoying it
seeing the world as hostile, afraid of being left alone
expecting the worst outcome
getting easily angry
negative vision
what to do to regain your balance
change your environment: taking a walk, ...
crying, watching sad movies, it makes you realize your less serious, sensitive side
talking with people that show compassion and understanding
As an intuitive feeler it is important to keep in touch with reality. Make sure that your visions and ideas remain realistic. Don't put too much believe in your intuition, hunches and don't jump to conclusions when it comes to hidden meaning and underlying motives but check if they are real and not imaginary. For many introvert intuitives it is relaxing to enjoy sensory experiences like eating, exercise, working in the garden, ... Others escape from their dominant and auxiliary function by reading an adventure roman. It seems to be very effective to stop the internal focus for a moment and enjoy (indirectly) adventures in the outside world. Use sensing as recreation.
tips and tricks:
- try to take leadership ad work. Although it is hard for you to give negative feedback, you would do very good in a leading position since you are sincere concerned with the feelings of others and try to get the best out of people. You could do wonders with a small close team
- don't expect relationships to be ideal
- be more ambitious and try to expand your social circle
- try to be more controlled and less defensive in your behavior and try to be more diplomatic, this will create more acceptance of your ideas
- try to delegate more and give negative feedback when needed
- don't jump to conclusions
- spend some time every day for meditation and reflection
- accept that you are not responsible for everything and everyone
- spend some time every day to reflect about "what could be possible" and enjoy it. By doing so you will get less easily depressed about the concrete demands of reality
- check your visions and hunches with others
- enjoy sensory experiences
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