Dear Friend, I have recently renewed my love relationship with the ideas and thoughts surrounding personality types. I’ve always found myself intrigued by personality types and yesterday, when on the naviance site (hoping to fear that EMHS HAD in fact sent my transcripts to one of my top schools, unfortunately they had NOT) I randomly looked at the personality profile that was there (based on a test that I had taken earlier in my high school career) I found myself captivated once more. You see I am always amazed at how accurate the descriptions are. Inspired to learn more I googled my type (INFJ) and clicked on the first link that popped up. I read through the “personality profile” of INFJ’s and found myself verbally exclaiming my agreement to the empty room around me. Somethings I hadn’t even thought about as a personality trait before, but, when mentioned, I found myself wonderfully surprised.

You see there are 16 different Personality Types (when using the Meyers-Briggs test, which I do, because I like it better than other personality groupings I’ve seen.) These types are named using 4 Letters. The letters are determined according to four tendencies we have explained thus: (P.S.) I’ve stolen the following information from http://www.personalitypage.com/html/info.html )

  1. our flow of energy
  2. how we take in information
  3. how we prefer to make decisions
  4. the basic day-to-day lifestyle that we prefer

Within each of these categories, we “prefer” to be either:

  1. Extraverted or Introverted
  2. Sensing or iNtuitive
  3. Thinking or Feeling
  4. Judging or Perceiving

Our Flow of Energy defines how we receive the essential part of our stimulation. Do we receive it from within ourselves (Introverted) or from external sources (Extraverted)? Is our dominant function focused externally or internally?

The topic of how we Take in Information deals with our preferred method of taking in and absorbing information. Do we trust our five senses (Sensing) to take in information, or do we rely on our instincts (iNtuitive)?

The third type of preference, how we prefer to Make Decisions, refers to whether we are prone to decide things based on logic and objective consideration (Thinking), or based on our personal, subjective value systems (Feeling).

There is also the fourth type of preference, how we deal with the external world on a Day-to-day Basis. Are we organized and purposeful, and more comfortable with scheduled, structured environments (Judging), or are we flexible and diverse, and more comfortable with open, casual environments (Perceiving)?

(Ok, back to me) so you see it is really rather simple. I, for example, am an INFJ. There were several interesting things about INFJ’s that I discovered yesterday:

1) Our personality type is the rarest, with between 1 and 3 % of the population.

2) INFJ’s have been known to show signs of what seems to be ESP and using their intuition to sense things in an unexplainable fashion. This is weirdly true, at least in my case. There have been several times in my life when I “felt” like something had happened to a close family member (or close friend) only to find out they been injured, hospitalized, etc.

3) Several famous INFJ’s are: Ghandhi, Jesus, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frodo Baggins (yes, I DO realize he’s a fictional character.)

So to sum up this unfortunately chaotic post let me just encourage you to look up your personality type. Find a few funny quirks that your personality trait tends to have, find a role model that shares your personality type, and maybe even read about other personality types to learn more about the people around you. Have Fun!

Love, Mandi Jo