Okay, so this not only happened to me (and most of my friends as they learned MBTI) but I see it happen a lot online, so I want to address it.
Your dominant function is unconscious – you use it so much, and are so good at it, it’s hard for you to recognize it when you’re using it unless you already know it’s there. Once you find your right type, you start noticing what you’re doing when you’re doing it – but the process of figuring that out is hard.
The biggest mistake I see people make is noticing their lower functions (they do not use them unconsciously, thus they pay attention when they show up) and assuming they are higher. You can tell higher from lower functions based on how mature the function is and how it manifests. An EXFP might notice their Te because they use it, and they feel drawn to being logical, detached, and getting things done – and think they’re a TJ until they meet a real one. If self-aware, they will see how much harder it is for them to use Te all day than for the TJ.
The ISXP will notice tert-Ni and think how intuitive they are – until they meet a Ni-dom. The comparison is enormous. One is a literal way of perception that guides each concept that crosses their mind (INXJ), the other is thin hunches, insights, and the desire for intuitive depth.
The higher the function, the stronger it is, and the more it works as it should. High Ne - good at instinctively knowing things, trusting hunches, and thinking in multiple directions on demand, focusing on the wider implications. Auxiliary Ne - does all of that, except it’s always guided by Fi or Ti, which will rule out anything Ti or Fi does not like. Tertiary Ne - playful, funny, reads into things, but not with as much accuracy as high Ne. Inferior Ne - good for writing books and having fun, but doesn’t place much faith in hunches, has no depth to their intuition.
Same goes for high Ni vs. low Ni – high Ni: depth of intuition, inferior Ni: no depth of intuition. High Te - effortless logic and organizational skills; low Te - hard logic, no depth of organizational skills. High Ti - effortless internal frameworks and logical consistency; low Ti - no depth of logic, shallow internal frameworks. High Se - knows how to impact the environment for immediate change, confident in doing so; low Se - shallow impact and awareness. High Si - effortless comparison to former similar situations, strong memory for detail; low Si - shallow comparisons to former situations, zero detail awareness. Etc.
The nice thing is, whatever you suck at, you are AMAZING at your dominant.
So, to combat this problem, you have to pay attention to several things:
Your own defensiveness over a function (usually indicates its lower)
The functions you notice the most (require the most effort – thus, lower)
What you admire most in other people (often they’re using competently your weakest functions, and you have function envy)
Ego can get tangled up in finding a “cool” type and sticking with it, but what you want is your ACTUAL type so you can work on self-development, noticing your blind spots, and working to correct them. You want to be the best ___ you can be, not a “fake” anything.
So, your weaknesses have to match up to your type’s weaknesses. This goes for Enneagram and MBTI.
Just as a reminder, the weaknesses of each type:
ESXP: poor at envisioning future outcomes for their actions or thinking about it.
ENXP: poor at retaining details, specifics, or what actually happened.
EXFJ: poor at detaching from their feelings, and forming consistent arguments.
EXTJ: poor at recognizing / respecting their emotions and handling them.
IXFP: poor at organizing their time for maximum efficiency and sticking to it.
IXTP: poor at reading other people’s emotions and responding appropriately.
INXJ: poor at being aware of sensory input and can ignore outside evidence.
ISXJ: poor at developing and trusting hunches and weak abstraction.
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