Why You Need to Know Your Personality Type 

Firstly, it’s important to understand that personality typing is not designed to pigeonhole a person or to say that one personality is better than the other. Each personality has its unique characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. An empowering personal development tool, personality typing will help you to:   

• Understand your thoughts, feelings, and motivations 
• Identify your strengths and weaknesses 
• Make smarter education and career choices   
• Be confident in a job interview  
• Network successfully  
• Be happy in your workspace 
• Maintain healthy relationships 
• Live your best life 

Introduction to Personality Typology  

The road to modern personality typology was first paved by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. Based on Jung’s work, psychologists Isabel Briggs Myers and Katharine Briggs created the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI identifies 16 different personalities, and it’s one of the most popular methods of personality typing today.  

To further explain how people differ in the way they use their cognitive functions, Myers and Briggs use the following preferences for their self-evaluation personality assessment. 

1. Introversion (I) or Extraversion (E). Where you get your energy from. Do you draw your energy from your inner world or the external world and people? 
2. Sensing (S) or Intuition (N). How you receive information. Do you prefer to use your senses to receive information from your surroundings, or use your intuition to interpret and add your meaning? 
3. Thinking (T) or Feeling (F). How you make decisions. Do you take a logical approach, or do you prefer to look at people and circumstances before deciding? 
4. Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). How you interact with the outside world. Do you prefer to have things decided and organized or do you like to remain open to new information and options? 

The letters that are assigned to each of the above preferences make up a four-letter code for each of the 16 personality types. This simple coding system shows you how each of the four preferences interacts, and which one you tend to use first.  

How you use these preferences can change over time and some of these preferences may be used more often than others.  

For example, an INFJ person is described as an introverted person who uses intuition, feeling, and judging preferences. 

INFJs are introverts 

As an introvert, INFJs draw their energy from their internal world, and they prefer a solitary life.  

These types of people are sometimes described by others as being quiet, aloof, and even shy, but INFJs still do enjoy social interactions. They tend to avoid socializing in large groups because they prefer to channel all their energies to one or two people and they will need time alone to recharge their energy levels.  

Overview of the INFJ Personality and Characteristics 

The INFJ personality is not only the rarest personality type, making up only 1 to 3% of the U.S. population, but it is one of the more unusual MBTI personalities. INFJs have contradictory characteristics which make them a bit of a mystery to others and maybe even to themselves.  

INFJs prefer their own company, but they also like to make deep connections with people. They are perfectionists but also laid-back and easy-going. Even though they make decisions based on their feelings, they also like to be organized. 

The INFJ personality type is also referred to as the “Idealist”, “Advocate”, and “Counselor”, as types of people who have strong moral principles, are committed to their values of honesty, fairness, and respect, and are people-focused. 

Because of their strong ethical nature, the Idealist holds a dim view of people who don’t live according to the same moral code. However, despite their utopian worldview that everyone should share the same beliefs as they do, INFJs are never aggressive about their beliefs. Peace and harmony are their heart’s desires. 

INFJs excel in the roles of Advocate and Counselor because they like to help and support others and they have a special way of getting people to open up. They will listen intently to their counselee and then carefully weigh up all the information, before sharing their wise counsel.  

Creative and practical, INFJs are clever problem-solvers. The more complex the problem, the better, and an INFJ will never shy away from the difficult issues of life. In their mind, problems are not obstacles but useful tools that can bring out personal or global transformation.  

100% committed to their goals, INFJs don’t just sit around talking about their plans, they do what they say, and you can rely on them to put their words into action. Although INFJs seek to fulfill their dreams, they also pursue the greater good.  

They are often described as the “big picture” people, so they can miss out on the little things that are happening around them. An INFJ needs to remember to focus on the present as well as the future. 

INFJs can also become discouraged when their altruistic efforts don’t bring about the results they hoped for and may become angry, frustrated, and depressed. However, despite setbacks, they will persist and try to stay positive anyway.

Cognitive Functions 

Intuition 

Intuition is very important for INFJs as they rely on this powerful gift to receive information from their surroundings and to determine future outcomes. They interpret and add meaning to the stored sensory data from their insightful impressions and perceived patterns that have been picked from the external world. 

Some INFJs would explain their intuition as having a ‘hunch’ or a ‘gut feeling’ about a certain situation or person and the strange thing is, they are often right about their ‘hunches’. 

If their intuition tells them that a certain person may not be genuine or has suspect motives, an INFJ may warn you to stay away from that person. They may even stop supporting a cause because of their psychic-like perceptions. 

Once they have formed their opinions, they will stubbornly stick to them which can make them seem rigid and unyielding. However, despite this stubbornness, INFJs are great future forecasters, and their intuitiveness will benefit employers and society.