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 another. Each personality comes with its unique characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. Personality typing is an empowering personal development tool that will help you to:   

• Identify your strengths and weaknesses and make sense of your thoughts, feelings, and motivations 
• Make informed education and career choices   
• Be confident in a job interview  
• Maintain happy and healthy relationships 
• Inspire others to live their best life 
• Thrive in the workspace 

Introduction to Personality Typology  

Understanding one’s strengths and weaknesses, needs, and wants help with:   

• Ability to identify relevant opportunities  
• Accessing career information  
• Ability to plan and take career-related decisions  
• Ability to present oneself effectively to gain access to courses or jobs  
• Ability to network and build relationships

The road to modern personality typology was first paved by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. Based on his 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 explain how people differ in the way they use their personality preferences/cognitive functions, Myers and Briggs use the following four preferences for their self-evaluation personality assessment. 

1. Introversion (I) or Extraversion (E). Where do you draw your energy from, from your inner world or the outer world? 
2. Sensing (S) or Intuition (N). How you receive information. Do you prefer to receive information from your surroundings, or prefer 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 do you interact with the outside world? Do you like to have things decided and organized or do you prefer to remain open to new information and options? 

The letters that are assigned to each of the above four preferences make up a four-letter code for each of the 16 personality types. This simple coding system shows you how your four preferences interact, 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, the ISFJ personality type uses the following preferences in this order: introversion, sensing, feeling, and judging. 

ISFJs are introverts 

As an introvert, ISFJs like to focus on and draw energy from their internal world, and they tend to prefer a solitary life.  

These types of people may be described by others as being quiet and reserved, but these types of people do enjoy meaningful social interactions. They tend to avoid socializing in large groups because they prefer to channel their energies to one or two people and will need some time alone to recharge their energy levels. 

Personality Profile of the ISFJ and Characteristics 

Overview  

ISFJs are unique introverts as they tend to be more people-oriented unlike other introverts such as the ISTJ or ISTP personalities that are task-oriented. Due to their altruistic nature, the ISFJ personality has been given the nicknames, Defender, Protector, and Nurturer and these titles fit this personality type perfectly.  

The following quote from Isabel Briggs Myers sums up ISFJ’s main characteristics:

“ISFJs emphasize loyalty, consideration, and the common welfare.”

These types of people are warm-hearted, compassionate, caring, and friendly and they enjoy helping others.  

ISFJs are motivated by a strong responsibility to serve, whether it’s in the community, workplace, or home. Wherever there is a need, ISFJs spring into action to meet that need in practical ways, and they do this with enthusiasm and remain committed no matter what. 

As ISFJs are very humble, you probably won’t see them blowing a trumpet about their philanthropy or demanding recognition for their community service. They are content to work behind the scenes and are satisfied that they’ve had an opportunity to make a positive difference in a person’s life. 

ISFJs are loyal to the values of the organizations they work for, and as they value social harmony, they do their best to get along with others.  

Conscientious, meticulous, and reliable, ISFJs strive for perfection, so whether it’s work, family, or play, everything they do will be done to a high standard. 

Upholding established traditions and following set rules are important to ISFJs. They feel most comfortable when they are working according to a plan within an ordered, structured environment, and they find it hard to change and adapt to new ways of doing things.