INFJ

This week I discovered the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Not my catchiest opening sentence I'll admit but I promise you this is more interesting than it initially appears.

MBTI is a self-report questionnaire which when completed classifies you as one of sixteen personality types. It was created by Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers using the work of eminent psychologist Carl Jung.

You can do a test online here which is based on MBTI. I was skeptical about it but I went through the short questionnaire and answered the questions honestly. It calculated what my personality type is and I started to read through the information about it.

This was the revelatory moment. I suddenly realised I was reading a scarily accurate description of my personality. This brief moment of curiosity had turned into something altogether more revealing.

I am apparently of the "INFJ" personality type, also known as 'the advocate' or 'the counselor'. Apparently this type makes up less than one percent of the world's population. I do generally feel different to most people and so for me this makes a lot of sense.

This paragraph is the sort of brief overview of the INFJ personality type:

INFJs tend to see helping others as their purpose in life, but while people with this personality type can be found engaging rescue efforts and doing charity work, their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all.

Apparently people of this type tend to be soft-spoken but have very strong opinions and will fight for an idea they believe in. That's very much me. Everyone describes me as "quiet" but it's been known that I will speak up when I feel I need to.

INFJs are usually described as introverted and very private which is very much me. When a group of people are having a conversation, sharing their plans for the weekend or their experiences relating to a certain thing I will listen but it's very unusual for me to pitch in with my own thoughts unless I'm directly asked to do so. Even then, I know that I usually share the minimum amount of information possible when I'm asked about my personal life unless it's someone I really like or know well.

I appreciate that I'm fairly open about things when I'm writing on this blog but for me it's different. I'm not directly talking to anyone and though I know it's likely some people I know personally will be reading this very sentence I'm much more comfortable with that than saying things like this out loud.

The usual career types for INFJs are apparently things like counselors, psychologists, doctors, life coaches and teachers. I trained as a teacher and am now a teaching assistant working with children with autism, which fits very much in this sort of area.

This sentence jumped out at me from the career section too:

INFJs often pursue expressive careers such as writing, elegant communicators that they are, and author many popular blogs, stories and screenplays.

I'm not saying this is a massively popular blog or anything but writing is important to me and the one thing I feel I have any talent for.

There's a lot more on the INFJ traits and I'm not going to discuss everything. As with most things in psychology, there are questions about the accuracy and reliability of MBTI but for me it seems to work. It's satisfying to know that my personality isn't totally unique and is recognised by psychologists as a certain type, even if it is a rare one. I've always found learning more about myself to be a fascinating and useful experience which gives me a little more self-confidence.

That's it for today and I'm pleased to have begun a week off after yet another stressful half term. See you soon.