What's your Personality Type?

A few years ago I came across an article describing an “INFJ” according to the MBTI personality type theory. This was something I hadn’t heard of at the time, and upon reading the article and doing the test it transpired that was my type.

What struck me, is how much fun it was to dissect my own personality and look at myself through new eyes.

“To know thyself, is the beginning of all knowledge” – Aristotle

With that in mind, how can this model be used to further understand yourself?

MBTI Theory

According to this theory, there are different cognitive functions which come in pairs, and we have a preference for one or the other.

They are:

Introversion (I) – Extraversion (E)

Intuition (N) – Sensing (S)

Feeling (F) – Thinking (T)

Judging (J) – Prospecting (P)

The letters which depict your type describe these categories. INFJ is therefore introverted, uses intution, feeling, and judging.

Definitions

· Introversion: comfortable spending time alone, recharges alone

· Extraversion: more comfortable around others, recharges with others

· Inution: uses intution to solve problems

· Sensing: uses external senses to solve problems

· Feeling: navigates world through emotions

· Thinking: Navigates world through thought

· Judging: looks to the future when making decisions

· Prospecting: looks to the present when making decisions

How to find your type

There is an in depth test on this website which can give you an idea of your type. If the given information doesn’t resonate, try reading about and see if any of the other types sound like you. With knowledge of how we work, we can begin to look towards finding our purpose, learn how to use our skills to our advantage.

Taking time to answer the questions as well as answering them honestly will lead to more accurate results. There are other ways of describing personality, but I find this model the easiest and most detailing.

That being said, in psychology often people are put into boxes or presumed to behave a certain way, when in fact each indiviual is so unique it is difficult to ascribe qualities to sets of people. Therefore, this model is an approximation/lead into self knowledge, a good starting point when looking at how to understand oneself.

Armed with self knowledge, we can learn what we ourselves need to work on in order to be successful. There is no one size fits all answer for self progression, so understanding ourselves the best we can will help with those sort of endeavours.

Happy soul searching!