Writers and INFJ’s

Several days ago, Kristen Lamb’s blog post stated something that caught my attention. She said, “As artists and writers many of us fall in the INFJ or ENFJ sectors of the Myers-Briggs. What this means is that we process information and interpret our reality through intuition (N) and emotion (F). We have a heightened sense of empathy.” That passage stuck out to me because I’m neither an INFJ or an ENFJ. In fact, I’m the opposite. I’m an ISTJ (note the two letters in the middle are different – that means opposite in the Myers-Briggs stuff).

(Photo courtesy of Pinterest)

Let me back up a bit for those of you who are lost. To figure out what personality type you are on the Myers-Briggs scale, ask yourself four questions:

1. Where do you get your energy? If you feel energized in a crowd or around people, you are an Extrovert (E). If you recharge your energies by being alone, you’re an Introvert (I).

2. How do you deal with incoming information? If you filter what you see, hear, touch, taste, and smell, you are a Sensing (S) person. If you are introspective, highly imaginative, and think problems through, then your’e an Intuitive (N).

3. How do you deal with decisions? If you are objective and analyze the pros and cons, you’re a Thinking person (T). If you look at multiple points of view and take into account how others will feel about the decision, you’re a Feeling person (F).

4. How do you live your life? If you like planning, organizing, settling and deciding for yourself, you’re a Judgment person (J). If you’re flexible, spontaneous, and adaptive, you’re Perceiving (P).

Pick one letter from each question, and that spells out your personality type. (See previous posts for tons of detail about each of these personalities.) As noted above, I’m an ISTJ. That means I recharge by being alone (many writers are this way), I see the world analytically through my senses, I like things orderly, I’m a hard-core pragmatist, and I rarely take into consideration other people’s feelings. That’s not to say I can’t empathize, but I’m often accused of being rude or insensitive. Doesn’t bother me a bit, but I digress.

Kristen, in her blog post, mentioned that many writers aren’t like me at all. I can live with that. Differences make the world go around. It just got me to wondering: How many of you fall into the INFJ/ENFJ camp? How many aren’t anywhere close? Please share! I think it’d be fun to see how many different personality types think of themselves as writers, and how different we all are from each other.

-Sonja