What's up everybody?
Firstly, my Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)personality type is INFJ (Introverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Judjing). If you don’t know your MBTI personality type is, check this 16Personalities out and do a test! Here’s my result.
So, we’re gonna talk about the secrets of the INFJ personality type. OMG. What are these secrets? Could the secret be, I say I like pop punk songs but actually I just listened to Bieber's song today. Could the secret be, actually l like KFC, but I also like McD tho. Well, we’re gonna find out, what are the secrets of the INFJ?
We’re gonna be looking at an article of introvertdear.com written by Jenn Granneman, it’s called The 10 Secrets of The INFJ, The Rarest Personality Type In The World. Let’s see what Jenn has to say and I will summarize it.
1. On a different wavelength
INFJs are on a different wavelength. This is because we’re so intuitive and we have dominant introverted intuition. It gives us kind of a sixth sense that is difficult to explain to others. I agree with this point on the list, that INFJs are definitely on a different wavelength than most people. I will say though that a lot of people are on different wavelengths, there’s like whole spectrum of wavelengths that people can be on. Do more INFJs generally feel more isolated than other types? Perhaps. Perhaps having a dominant introverted intuition makes them feel like they can’t relate as much to other people. But let’s not go all in on this. Let’s not go too heavily on this feeling of being on a different wavelength.
2. Highly perceptive of others
Now, the reason this is because we have extroverted feeling. Which means that we’re always looking out at other people to see what they’re feeling about something. And that’s not just emotion. That’s also like what do you like? What do you dislike? What value do you place on things?. And so, it’s just a natural way of being for INFJs to constantly be trying pick a part what’s going on in everyone else’s head. I agree with this. We’re highly perceptive of other people.
3. Absorbs other people’s emotions
Now, watch out for this one. Because the thing is INFJ can absorbs other people’s emotions. What that means? Basically is if you are sitting with someone and they are feeling sad, you’ll start to feel sad too. If they’re feeling happy, you will start to feel happy along with them. Extroverted feeling makes it so that emotion is kind of like a shared thing. Your feelings are not quite as personal as they might be to someone who has introverted feeling, but let’s get something straight here. Anyone could really be swayed by someone else’s emotions could absorb other people emotions. It’s just a human thing. And I think it’s not so much that it’s such a special thing that only INFJs can do. But I think it’s a thing that sensitive people will do. They’ll absorb other people’s emotions. It’s something that people with a high levels of empathy. Sometimes called empaths, will do and perhaps many, maybe all INFJs fit those specifications. But it’s not exclusive to this type, so I just wanna make that clear that just because you absorb other people’s emotions, it means that you’re a very perceptive person who’s very sensitive. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you are this type. But yes, it is one of the secrets of the INFJ. I feel whatever you’re feeling right now. What are you feeling? I'll feel whatever you’re feeling right now.
4. Amazing long-range forecasting abilities
INFJs have amazing long-range forecasting abilities like is it gonna rainy next or sunny? We’ll see. Let’s ask the INFJ in the room. So, what this is introverted intuition and I want you to think of what is intuition? Intuition is looking at the abstract, right? and it is looking into the future. It basically is a forecast. It’s guessing into the future about what’s gonna happen next. It’s looking at a pattern.
"Oh I’ve seen what happened now and now I can project into the future and see what’s gonna happen next based on that".
Now the introverted intuition is very narrowed in and it’s just gonna see like what is this one pathway we can go along based on this one pattern I see? This is actually a very true one. They will have the ability to look long range, depending on if they care, like if an INFJ cares about a specific pattern like enough to really hone in on it. They can tell you 10 years from now, what’s gonna happen. But they’re not necessarily gonna know everything about everything. You know what I’m saying? Here’s the other part of that. They’re not necessarily gonna be right. An INFJ, like myself, I can say that I can see what’s coming down the road but it’s not necessarily 100% correct. It’s just what I do. That’s just what I live. I’m thinking 10 years down the road what’s gonna happen. I’ll tell you, it’s a heck of a way to do anything. Like when you’re dating, you’re thinking to yourself, what is it gonna be like when we’re 50 years old and our kids are in high school and college? How are we gonna get along then? Are we gonna have the some interests? Are we gonna retire in 70 in the same way once we hit 70? Am I gonna be able to retire? Is the social security system going to hold up that long? Probably not or yes.
Amazing forecasting abilities. You know and it’s a double edged sword because when you’re just thinking in the future all the time. INFJs, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna have a bunch of anxiety all the time because you’re not living in the present, you’re looking in the future. And you’re gonna think you’re right about everything that you forecast in the future, which you’re not going to be. But you’re gonna think you’re gonna be right. And so, you’re just going to cut off a lot of opportunities before you even allow them to manifest. And you’re gonna really become limited and super controlling and only allow a certainly amount of stuff to go on in your life. Because you see something else is a little bit outside of the norm for you and you project way into the future. And you’re like, nah, I don’t see that working out, I don’t like it. And you just pass off on it and you stay on your little tunnel vision.
My advise to myself. I’m really just saying this to myself and to all the INFJs in there is try some new stuff. Don’t just go whole hog in. Is that even the right term to use? Don’t just go all in, put all the chips on the Ni, and think that you know everything that’s gonna happen because you don’t. Try some new stuff. Try some new experiences. Try not to forecast 10 years down the road. Try it out. You might be surprised. Your life might open up in ways you never expected.
5. Both emotional and rational
Now look, let’s get real. Everyone is emotional and rational. But the thing about INFJs, well , let’s not try to make us feel totally not to special. For INFJs, feeling and thinking are very balanced. We have extroverted feeling. It's out there making sure everyone is happy, everyone’s having a good time, making sure that everyone likes what’s going on. Then we have introverted thinking, which is really narrowing down what do I think is true? What do I think works? What do I think is rational? I don’t what just other people think. I just wanna know for myself, what is logical and rational. And we’re pretty balanced with those two things. We can go back and forth between, OMG, is everybody happy? And then going back into ourselves and being like, this is make sense to me? You see what I’m saying? So yeah, we are very balanced. This is true. This point is very true.
6. Creators of deep emotional intimacy
So, from my perspective INFJs have a tendency to just speaking. From my own experience, have a tendency to be the kind of people who can just instantly open up to strangers and get strangers to instantly open up to them. It’s kind of weird. Now, that’s not exactly what this point is saying. But we can create kind of quick intimacy with people. Because extroverted feeling, this is about something I’ve thinking for a while. Extroverted feeling kind of looks at the social interactions and sharing kind of an emotional bond, almost like a game. It’s this thing external to us. It’s not extremely personal and so it doesn’t. I mean look, we’ll still have issues with social anxiety, with feeling like, OMG, what do people think about me? But at the sometime, we know the game. We understand the game what’s that going on and so we can be like really quickly establishing a rapport with people and feeling confident enough to go in there. And tell people stuff about ourselves and to get information out of other people about them that maybe is not normal for that level of knowing someone. You know what I mean? Taking that even further, when you actually know someone really well. An INFJ’s gonna be really good at just navigating another person and finding all the ways to connect deeply. It’s really a great strength to have. And I know a lot of us are have it.
7. True introverts
They are true introverts. I disagree a little bit with this. So in the article there it says, INFJs are sometimes called extroverted introverts or ambiverts. However, INFJs are true introverts who prefer a small circle of friends and need plenty of down time to recharge. Well, look, INFJs can be on a spectrum, right? Some can be very shy, others can be very extroverted. There’s no one answer to it. But, on the other hand, the fact that we have introverted intuition as the dominant function. It’s an introverted function. It means we really just prefer doodling around in our brain most of the time rather than bouncing off the outside world. Now, if you’re Fe, if you're extroverted feeling is getting a good workout, then you can look like a total extrovert. And that’s what I was gonna say on my last point that those of us who are INFJs, who are on the more introverted side, who are more shy. What you need realize is you have this gift of extroverted feeling where if you can just trust yourself to go out into the social world and just trust yourself. I can just instinctively know how to navigate these things, and it’ll take a little practice. I’m not saying it’s total, maybe instinct is a bad word, it’s not total instinct. But it’s just the way your feeling is oriented, outwards other people. And it’s strengths that we have if you just believe in yourself!
8. Sensitive to conflict
INFJs are sensitive to conflict. Now yes and no. Yes, extroverted feeling means we wanna keep things smoothed over. But on the other hand, extroverted feeling has this side to it where it can feel comfortable in navigating conflict. It doesn’t mean that we’re gonna seek it out. It doesn’t mean we’re gonna want to go in to it. But it doesn’t mean that we can kind of understand these interpersonal human connections. We understand how everyone in this room is feeling. And also because we have that balance of feeling and thinking we can go back and forth pretty well understanding everyone’s point of view from an emotional standpoint, as well as applying our own logic to it. And figuring out what the best course of action is. And so, while we don’t like conflict, INFJs can be very good at resolving conflict and can go into it pretty confidently and saying, "look, we can all work this out, it’s not a big deal". So, we’re sensitive to it. We’re sensitive but we can handle it. You got this!.
9. End up in one-sided relationships
One-sided relationships occur when others take more than they give. I’m sure a lot of us have been this kinda situation before where we have a friend or significant other, maybe even a family member. And they just need from us. They just take and we’re willing to give it. Because that’s how our feeling is oriented. Extrovertedly. And we want to make other people happy but if you’re not careful, you can just get into this pattern of this is all your relationships. You don’t wanna stand up and say, "hey, can someone make me happy, can we turn this around for a second?". It’s really something to watch out for, especially for you younger INFJs. This is something you’re gonna fall into a lot. The older one, 30 and above, they might have gone through the pattern enough to realize. Oh I need to be selfish every once in awhile, and stand up for myself and make sure that I’m happy and make sure my needs are met. And you’re not gonna think about yourself and you’re going to wake up one day and be like, ooh, there’s nothing in it for me. There’s nothing in this relationship for me and then you’re gonna feel bad for thinking that. Because I shouldn’t think that’s selfish. I shouldn’t think about myself. How fed up is that!
10. Looking for their soulmates
I mean who isn’t really looking for soulmate? But I think that INFJs generally they don’t like dating. They don’t like this search. INFJs really hate that because our inferior function is extroverted sensing, which is basically looking out there and gathering. A dating app mis extroverted sensing. It’s crap, we gotta look through all these profiles, we gotta read a bunch, we gotta figure out who these people are. We’ve gotta take in all this new data. We hate that garbage. And then we’ve gotta go out and meet people on dates. We gotta spend our time. It might not go anywhere. It’s like a nightmare for most INFJs. So, we have this happy little fantasy that hopefully maybe I’ll just be out somewhere. I’ll be at the movie theater and that cute girl will walk up and we’ll be buttering our popcorn together. Ouch….., that sounded wrong!. We’ll be at the soda fountain and she’ll spill some soda on me and I’ll say ,’hey girl.., would you like to be my soulmate?’. Fantasies like that where we can just instantly go to relationship. That deep intimacy that we talked about before. We don’t wanna have to go through the gathering process of getting to know someone and all these details, getting to know multiple people and narrow down stuff. I mean, we like the narrowing down. We just don’t like the gathering to begin with.
Of course, everything in that article being said, it’s very difficult to find that person with whom you are going to make a connection like that. And it can really feel impossible and hopeless. All I can tell you is this might be one INFJs need to simmer down a bit on. If go out there looking for your soulmate, you are looking for this really abstract thing, which of course, you’re an INFJ. That’s what you do. You look for this abstract thing that are really narrowed in, focused in. This small little thing, this is what I want in the abstract. Guess what? It doesn’t exist in real life. So, what you’ve gotta do is dial down this image of your soulmate and just be like, crap I gotta go out. And I’ve gotta do the thing I don’t wanna do. I’ve got to gather a bit. I’ve got to go out. I’ve got to meet new people. I’ve got to be open to things that are outside of this very narrow intuition that I have. This very narrow projection of the future. Maybe I’ve gotta let myself be a little bit social drained.
You know, you’re introvert. You don’t want to get out there that much, spend a bunch of energy but you’ve just got too. But the thing is I think if you let go out this idea of the perfect person, soulmate, this very narrow definition you have, just let go of it. And accept that you might never get the exact perfect thing you want out of a relationship. Maybe that’s when all of a sudden it’ll just come to you. This person because all the sudden you’ve opened up more. You’re open to more possibilities. You’re open to gathering more information.
So, don’t give up. But realize if you are having a hard time finding your soulmate, this gonna sounds harsh. It’s your fault. You are too narrow. I’m not saying lower your standards to a ridiculous degree. But what I’m saying is take an honest look at yourself and see how am I just laser focused in on this abstract thing and how much do I need to realize what reality is and open my eyes a bit. You know what I am saying? Because a relationship’s gonna be hard even it’s with your perfect person. Because all humans are difficult to get along with, basically. But the good news is you have extroverted feeling. So you should be capable if you just apply yourself a bit, to navigate relationships and figure it out. But it starts with dialing down the introverted intuition and realizing. I don’t have it figured out, I don’t know exactly what a soulmate look like. At that point, then I feel like you can actually find it. It’s kinda this reverse psychology you gotta play on yourself.
Thank you so much for reading. I really appreciate it if any of you click the claps, save button, or share it to your friends. Make sure you hit follow button to see another INFJ secret. Stay safe and healthy!
