Hi, first of all I don't think you are terrible with relationship asks! And that's why I am here, eheh. I am a female entp and I am dating this enfp (I guess?) guy. He is funny, super creative and I love debating about our beliefs with him. There is only one thing between us: his emotional side. Since I am pretty reserved about my feelings he is always trying to do the same "not to be a burden". I am a Thinker, so emotions are not my cup of tea: I can never read him and I hate when he tries (1)
(2) to conceal his pain. I tried to talk about this with him but he said to me that he is always clear about what he feels with me, even when he bursted in tears a few times because of something I did/I said to him without even noticing it. Do you have any advice? He really matters to me and I don't want him to suffer anymore because of my dumbness.
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Haha, thank you, I try to be at least somewhat useful!
My goodness, I don’t know if I am wrong or not, but it appears to me two possibilities are at play here: either the ENFP genuinely likes you and therefore tries very hard not to become “a disappointment” so he can keep you around, or the ENFP in general is currently struggling with his emotional side and does not know how to remain authentic without feeling like his world is going to collapse... Which means that they might end up not even knowing what they want to begin with.
The thing is, I don’t know the full extent of what is going on between you two, not to mention his situation. But it does sound like an ENFP needs to learn how to communicate his needs and feelings better. Which makes me wonder, do you guys do anything he deeply cares about or enjoys? Does he do anything to express his feelings, especially in creative way (channelling his Ne)? Whether that’s art or projects, or even creative dates? Or is everything you do simply based in debates (Ne & T), and whatever sensory stuff you guys do?
In other words, is there anything he does that is deeply personal, therefore allowing him to connect with his inner self? Or could it be that he doesn’t really know how to express his feelings, or doesn’t do much for it anyway, perhaps due to lack of how-to knowledge?
From the sound of it, he doesn’t seem to have a good handle on his Fi, which makes the odds of you unintentionally hurting him very high, as he doesn’t give you clear pointers where to tread lightly... well, until he bursts into tears, which is not a desirable extreme.
I’d say have a look into his emotional life and assess his state of well-being, and then encourage authentic self-expression (but more so deeply seated needs and not random indulgences). This should help him feel more balanced and happier down the road, as well as more assertive and expressive when it comes to his emotional boundaries, so flare ups such as you described occur less often - if at all - and your relationship only skyrockets from there.:)
Anon wrote: Hello! I’ve typed myself as an ENFP but there’s this thing that I keep doing that I feel like from what I’ve read doesn’t really work with the core value of this type, which is authenticity, so I’m doubting whether I’ve typed myself correctly. Would you mind helping me get some outside perspective on the matter please?
Thing is I’ve noticed that in conversations I always try to accommodate people, despite my best judgment, I know that I have this habit but catch myself only when the deed is done and I’m already in the process of navigating the situation. Whenever someone is objectively wrong and makes the most illogical conclusions or incorrect claims, claims that sometimes could be refuted by just looking some information up and putting two and two together, I, instead of saying outright “here’s why you’re wrong”, either:
a) try to dumb myself down, by asking questions as if I’m not well versed in the subject at all, to lead the person to the right answer. I do this so when they inevitably realise that they were wrong, they’d feel less awkward, uncomfortable and maybe even inadequate.
b) try to mitigate the “blow” as much as possible by making metaphorical statements, by joking, by using examples of similar cases that would shine some light on the issue and help them reach the correct conclusion themselves, etc. Basically seeking out ways to not directly state that they were wrong.
I’ve not noticed that I always employ the above mentioned tactics out of fear to hurt people’s feelings, even though I realise that correcting someone shouldn’t objectively be that offensive or offensive at all, that it’s normal and would save me some time and nerves. Everyone does it, some even gloat when they do it. So why can’t I be the same and state bluntly whenever someone is wrong about something?
But I just keep doing this and I hate this about myself, especially when I try to seem stupid, it makes me feel terrible afterwards, because now this person (and whoever was present) thinks that I’m an idiot. This type of behaviour has backfired on me more than once with people then trying to take advantage of me, by which I mean they allow themselves to be less tactful/ respectful with me, probably thinking that if I appear to be this meek they don’t have to respect me, which I take note of and deal with accordingly.
So, question, does the above relate to mbti in any way? Any functions that I should look into that would help me deal with this? Is this something that an ENFP type would do? Or should I look outside of mbti here? Thank you!
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I don't comment on type confusion unless people submit a proper assessment according to the instructions on the contact page.
While people "shouldn't" be so easily offended by correction/criticism, the fact of the matter is many are. You can't ignore the reality of human nature. This habit of yours didn't come out of nowhere. A lot of people suffer from a fragile ego and cannot handle losing face. But this point aside, it's not a bad thing to consider people's feelings, is it? It shows that you're a caring and empathetic person, which you ought to be proud of.
However, when empathetic behavior is actually just conflict avoidance underneath, it signals that there's an ego development issue on your end. Generally speaking, all Fs prefer their social interactions to feel positive, so they are likely to struggle with the negativity of confrontation/conflict to varying degrees, for varying reasons.
ENFPs with ego development issues are likely to have Fi problems. Underdeveloped auxiliary Fi often manifests as lack of genuine self-confidence, wariness of authentic self-expression, and/or inability to speak up and advocate for oneself (and one's beliefs/values). Lack of trust in oneself produces a neediness for validation. Taken too far, they might become doormats or attention-seekers.
Taking your problem as an example, instead of using Ne maturely to work hard and come up with the best possible way of communicating with people, immature ENFPs are more likely to use Ne+Te haphazardly to find "shortcuts" or "workarounds" that ultimately end up producing bad outcomes.
When bad outcomes hurt oneself, it is a clear warning sign that the method being used is faulty and needs to be changed. The longer self-harm goes on, the more you can't live with yourself. Healthy Fi should encourage you to conduct yourself in a way that you can be proud of and feel good about, which means that Fi should never allow you to hurt yourself.
In short, this problem primarily stems from lack of Ne+Fi development that produces ineffective and harmful behavior. Thus, the remedy is to develop Ne+Fi and learn better communication methods that are more likely to benefit all parties involved. These topics come up regularly, so I suggest you read past posts.
Is there really nothing in between the extremes poles of "meekness" and "bluntness"? If you believe so, it shows a lack of imagination...
Hello I’m 29 years old ENFP, I’m feel my Te just Burst out like I can handle task with efficiency, but also i have problem with looping, when looping I feels like I was judge everything and my thoughts to be wild like shows “ah he’s trying gonna to hurt me so i need keep guard” even sometimes locked myself to not being hurt (Ne I think?), also I impulsive to get things done according my thoughts cause often jump to conclusion without think twice about it and take Decisions so excessive. How to get handle this looping and sorry my English is broken because I’m not native English speaker, thank you
Generally speaking, struggling with tertiary loop and/or inferior grip indicates that the dominant function is unhealthy and the auxiliary function is underdeveloped. The remedy to this is to develop the functions properly, in the correct order of the functional stack. For example...
Starting with Ne: If you had more faith in your own creative powers, then you wouldn't take problems so seriously, because you'd be confident of being able to adapt and work around them. Life doesn't seem as hard and the past doesn't weigh you down as much when you can always maintain an optimistic and hopeful outlook.
Similarly with Fi: If you could be genuinely accepting, especially of the reality of yourself, then you wouldn't be so preoccupied with having to protect/prove anything, would you? Without the strong urge to protect/prove, would your decisions still be so "excessive"?
These concepts have already been covered in the study guides and previous ENFP related posts, I suggest you read through them to get more detail about function development.
Anon wrote: Hello mbti-notes, 28F ENFP here. I have written to you a few times, one of them about my relationship with my 27M INTJ boyfriend and the other about my childhood trauma regarding my ENTJ mother and how it was keeping me from pursuing my art career.
I have been on the road of Fi development and lately I have started to develop Te. Some major life events happened since the last time I wrote to you; I had gotten diagnosed with ADHD after suspecting having it for years; then, my younger cousins got diagnosed with level one autism (Formerly known as Aspergers), and after my mother conversed with their mothers, we reached the conclusion I and other members of the family are also autistic and ADHD, since I displayed symptoms of both as a child.
With this new knowledge, I have been making all the changes necessary to accommodate myself and do the best I can and pull my own weight. I am almost finishing University, and my boyfriend (he’s pretty much my husband at this point) started his doctorate and is now an art teacher at our local arts University. (those issues I had written to you prior were resolved and we have been very happy together and supportive of each other since).
I have been slowly tearing down my perfectionistic tendencies; I am no longer unhappy about my work or extremely self-critic to the point I put myself down. I have gained confidence and trust in myself and handling problems, crafting solutions, planning (even if short-term) and improvising. I have been re-enganging my Ne in a healthy manner, focusing on my projects and progress instead of being scattered and wanting to do everything and anything.
Despite that, and all the growth I have done already, I feel that I have an unsurnamable mountain of obstacles to pass through. Over the last year, I have realized just how little my ISTP, probably autistic and bipolar father and ENTJ, probably ADHD mother completely failed to prepare me for life. I was emotionally neglected, made a scapegoat for their problems, made to pick up after myself because of my autism and ADHD being seen as failures of character instead of disabilities.
They saw I was intelligent, and rationalized it as “not needing help”; then, when my problems with executive disfunction and organization started flaring up due to their neglect, they yelled and blamed it on me, worsening the situation. I grew up with no understanding of boundaries; I wasn’t allowed to advocate for myself and everytime I tried I was yelled at; I wasn’t allowed to discover myself and my identity properly so I clinged to my special interests like a moth to a flame; I was shamed for my way of functioning and that impeded me of developing proper knowledge of myself and what I needed.
I now notice my social differences, my trouble dealing with and regulating emotions (and why I put off dealing with them), and my lack of social skills and differentiating levels of relationships. I feel angry that the time I needed to be using to deal with these issues, during adolescence and early adulthood, was taken away by autistic burnout, depression, and dealing with a disfunctional family who had no idea how to care for me and never tried to, and spent pursuing bad relationships, hyperfixations and changing interests, all the while not being able to put effort into what I really wanted because of the shame and judgement they placed on me.
I have been trying my best to pick up the slack, but it’s hard. I can see now how I was unjustly punished for my differences my whole life. I finally understand now why people get upset with me with things like being unable to regulate tone or asking clarifying questions (when I’m just trying to understand them).
I have accepted myself; I know my difficultities now and I know what I have to do to regulate myself, but I still can’t stop feeling angry at this injustice. I do my best to be proactive and helpful in the communities I join and make friends, but people will turn on me the moment I do something impulsive like vent to chat about my parents doing something rude to me that day (which happens regularly). The bridges I put effort into building get destroyed in minutes, and I feel like all my progress is undone.
Family is a tricky issue for people, I get it. There are different times and places to say things, I get it. But It still happens. I know the way to fix it would be to leave, but due to the housing crisis, inflation and my expenses of trying to finish my degree, I can’t move out of this place and still currently live with them. Rent is unnafordable, my boyfriend is going through his degree and busy, and I’m already at capacity fully comitting myself to art and doing the best job I can with chores and house stuff.
I know my parents have issues and I try my best do understand and be empathethic, but they aren't doing anything to get better or to resolve them. My dad is on disability and unemployment aid right now, he does minimal chores and watches TV and sleeps all day. My mother is a pre-school teacher and constantly overworks herself because that's how she learned to get through life.
A few months ago, my mom almost ended her marriage because in her words, she developed a "platonic crush" for another man. It was a huge fight, and one they tried to drag me into. When they're not having outright fights, they act lovey-dovey; but they soon have another nasty fight, and the cycle goes on.
My dad is extremely misoginistic, judgemental, and cynical. Everytime he tries to engage me in conversation, I act uniteresting so he leaves me alone. I am uncapable of building a relationship with them after all they did to me.
I just can’t stop feeling I got dealt a sh*tty hand in life and there is nothing I can do about it. I realize this is Si grip talking, but this enviroment completely kills all my optimist, motivation and will to move foward in life, and I’ve been doing this dance for way too long and just want it to end once and for all so I can keep progressing. I know I’ve already come a long way, but I can’t stop feeling it still isn’t enough, and I’m afraid that feeling won’t ever go away. So I turn to you for guidance on what to do.
Currently I am sitting on a few unfinished projects (a comic and animation) that will be my portfolio só I can start working while I finish my degree. My parents are paying for the remainder of it (honestly, the least they could do after the horrible lifetime they gave me) but I plan to start paying for it myself as soon as I get some work. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I'm doing everything to try and make things better, but I feel like they never will, and I don't know how to deal with that.
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Whenever people tell me about how they're making progress, even trying to develop lower functions, but also suffering from inferior grip, the alarm bells go off in my head, because it usually indicates some form of troublesome denial. In terms of type development, inferior grip is one of the most serious signs that something is not right psychologically.
I never want to poopoo on people's efforts to improve. I definitely believe that you've been putting forth your best efforts. However, if the outcome is inferior grip, it means there's a problem with your approach or method.
The way that you're stuck in blaming your parents for your misfortunes is not just a sign of Si grip, but also Te loop. If you're suffering from Te loop, it means Fi development hasn't progressed to the point where you are ready for Te development. Being a lower function, trying to develop Te when you're not ready is only going to exacerbate Te loop and eventually lead you into Si grip.
I won't deny that the people around you every day have a big influence over you. As a Feeler, their moods can easily affect yours. When that happens, the best thing to do is to draw up boundaries, to try to shield yourself from those negative influences as much as possible. However, what you've done is the opposite.
You've been drawn into the negative influence through blaming them, fighting back (mentally), judging them for their flaws, indulging pointless "what if" scenarios about your past, etc. In short, you have been swallowed up by the negativity partly because you didn't do enough to protect yourself from it. This is related to Fi development because Fi should inform you about what is needed for self-protection.
Now, since you find yourself in a hopeless place and can't accept the feelings of helplessness, the recourse is Te loop. You wish to actively "correct" everything that you perceive is "wrong". However, this is a futile endeavor. Why? Because those things are not for you to correct. You have overstepped/violated boundaries by wanting to solve problems that aren't your responsibility. This only serves to entangle you in them.
Your mom and dad's flaws, your mom and dad's relationship, are none of your business, but you are all up in there. Even if they try to involve you, as an adult, you have the power to refuse. Because you care about them, it's hard for you to refuse, but refuse you must. That's what it means to draw healthy boundaries.
Yes, it's tragic to have been deprived as a child. One thing you realize more and more deeply as you get older (especially if you have children of your own) is that parents are human, their knowledge is limited, and people can only do the best they can based on what they know. Many, many people are ignorant about psychological issues because they have had no opportunity to learn about them. What's worse, sometimes what they have learned is misinformation or outdated information based on what was being taught when they were growing up.
I say this not to excuse the bad things that parents do, but to foster empathy for the fact that people can't do better when they don't know better. You are the same. You didn't think to change your behavior or didn't know how to do it in the right way until you learned about ADHD. You live, you learn.
Empathy for others starts with empathy for oneself. Instead of pitying yourself or being angry about your past, healthy Fi should prompt you to express empathy for your struggles today. There aren't enough signs that you possess this depth of empathy, which indicates Fi development has a long way to go yet. It's hard to feel empathy when you're in the thick of negativity, but that's the time when it's most important to practice it.
An important part of having empathy for yourself, aka self-compassion, is allowing yourself to move at a realistic pace in life, a pace that takes your challenges into fair consideration, rather than always trying to live up to unreasonable ideals. Feeling "not good enough" and being afraid of that feeling never going away is directly related to Fi development and lack of self-acceptance. You must accept the truth of yourself and the facts of your situation before you can move forward in a meaningful way.
Also, if you find yourself speaking inappropriately or not giving enough consideration to social context when your feelings get too big, it means you haven't done enough to set up a good social support system and create more appropriate opportunities to explore your personal issues. Expecting parents or colleagues to give you support that they are not capable of giving is basically wasting energy barking up the wrong tree. In other words, don't look for love in all the wrong places. This is related to Fi development in terms of doing what it takes to care well for your well-being.
You are well into adulthood. At some point, it has to be fully your responsibility to craft the life you want. By continuing to blame your parents for not living up to your ideals, you are the one keeping yourself tied to past unhappiness, rather than moving forward. It is a choice you make.
I always say that forgiveness isn't about other people. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself. It's not good for you to live in a state of resentment, anger, or hate. It's not good to keep revisiting and rehashing such emotions on an endless loop. Therefore, you have to learn to forgive the mistakes of the past so that you can have the emotional stability necessary to focus on improving your life today and into the future.
Forgiving your parents for being the imperfect human beings that they are is difficult but necessary, not for their sake, but for yours. You can set yourself free from the past at any time through learning how to be more accepting, empathetic, and forgiving, which is very much tied to Fi development. This would be a healthy way of lifting yourself out of Si grip and mending your mental health.
Anon wrote: I'm an ENFP, I'm 30 years old and I’m really needing to work on my self-confidence for me and for dealing with people. I’ve read in our blogs some posts that reinforce the importance of developing skills to have confidence. I think it's very legitimate.
In this process of learning new things, I often find myself in great difficulty and my inner child agonizes with insecurity. I look at friends who have confidence in themselves as something natural: confidence that they will learn, confidence in themselves, but unfortunately I am very unstructured (poor growth environment, without incentives), so I have a lot of difficulty trusting myself: especially being so inexperienced, clumsy and slow to learn everything.
What gets worse is being in environments where people don't have patience with beginners. Like now I'm living in a foreign country where people are very rude in the workplace. This hurts me a lot, because I have problems asserting myself and being respected. I discovered that they need rudeness to respect others. How to deal with this? Would I be able to impose myself without getting nervous and acting rude (as they usually have to do)?
And more, how can we learn from this situation? How can I be truly confident and also how can I simply demonstrate more confidence to make myself respected? I'm tired of conveying weakness. People don't value my sweetness it's not a good tool for me right now. How to develop self-confidence, at least start to demonstrate a little confidence and boundaries! And in the midst of this, the most important thing: how do you deal with such unpleasant people? Especially me being used to being such a sweet, "silly" person, always with my guard down, calm and considered weak by others.
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You seem to be talking about two issues that need unpacking separately: 1) personality, and 2) confidence.
You're having a personality clash with the people at work. Analytical psychology posits that personality clashes are disturbing because they remind you of negative things in yourself you dislike, so there is a need to go within to see what's really happening.
To be clear, I'm not denying that toxic people/environments exist. I believe your description and I would certainly dislike the workplace myself. The point I'm making is, when you have no choice but to be in that sort of environment, there are healthier ways to navigate it, but being judgmental about people is not a healthy way. Judgmentalness is a sign of projection, which is an unhealthy defense mechanism, see previous posts on the topic.
One basic thing type theory teaches us is there are different people in this world. Therefore, one must always begin with acceptance of differences, if one hopes to have healthy relationships in every realm of life. You've come to identify with the so-called "sweet" aspects of your personality. When you identify with one side of yourself, you tend to unconsciously valorize that side, otherwise, you might end up hating yourself. However, in the process of valorizing that side, you inadvertently end up denying, devaluing, dismissing, or denigrating its opposite. It's no accident that these "rude" people trigger you. They bring to light your unconscious self-rejections.
Workplace = professionalism. To succeed in any workplace, it's important to set a clear boundary between private and public. It isn't appropriate to use the workplace to hash out personal issues. E.g. It's not a place to play games about who you favor or dislike. It's not a place to seek validation to soothe your insecurities. I would even argue it's not a great place to seek friendship or companionship. When you bring the personal into the professional, you are more likely to create mess, drama, discord, and conflict. Of course, there are people who live for messiness. Ask yourself exactly what role you want work to play in your life and behave in accordance with those values/principles in every workplace.
When you describe yourself in mostly positive terms ("sweet") and describe other people in very negative terms like "rude", "impatient", or "unpleasant", there is a possibility that you are biased. Typism is a bias. It means you believe some personalities/traits to be superior or inferior to others. ENFPs typically hope to get along well with all sorts of people. If you hope for that, you need to eliminate typist thinking. This requires learning to always approach people in a neutral/professional manner, even when you dislike them at first. You don't know the full story behind people. Oftentimes, the majority of people in toxic environments are just like you, i.e., struggling to survive and doing whatever it takes to keep out of trouble.
When you approach people in a neutral/professional manner, you should adopt an objective perspective about them. Yes, you see their faults, but you shouldn't lose sight of their redeeming qualities. When you're being judgmental, you're likely to dismiss people whole-hog, unable to see their redeeming qualities. Being blind to the positive means you lose opportunities for improving the situation, which means losing hope, which means losing self-confidence as you feel more and more passive and helpless.
How about, instead of using the word "rude", call them "direct" or "candid"? Instead of "impatient", how about "efficient"? When you use more neutral language to characterize people, you reinforce the idea that every personality trait has its pros and cons. When you can finally visualize the upside, you can harness it to your advantage. This allows you to let go of negative feelings and focus on the work itself. Nobody is asking you to marry these people. All you have to do is work with them long enough to get stuff done. Keep your feelings to yourself and stick only to the facts. Once work is done, go home, put it out of your mind, and get on with the rest of your life. If there are things you need to learn to improve your performance in the workplace, spend time on self-improvement outside of work in order to speed up your progress.
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With regard to confidence, when people bring up "lack of confidence", they often conflate several different concepts including: self-confidence, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and self-worth. It can be a complicated topic, so I'll elaborate on it for future reference. Some non-native English speakers have mentioned to me that their native tongue doesn't have direct translations for these four concepts, so beware that language might be a barrier for understanding them.
These four terms are relatively new in English as well; it wasn't until recently that they've started to filter down from academia into mainstream vocabulary. We know that these four concepts are distinct because, in the course of examining people who fall broadly under the category of "confidence issues", psychologists discovered that different people had somewhat different underlying processes happening, e.g., you could be good with one but struggle with the others. Of course, over time, how people use these terms in everyday language gets fuzzy, as the meaning diverges from the original academic definitions. I'll explain my understanding of them. You specifically mention learning issues, so I'll also connect to that.
I. SELF-CONFIDENCE arises from the degree to which you feel in control. If you 1) have good self-control, 2) feel as though you mostly have control over the direction of your life, and 3) feel as though you have enough control over your environment, then you're likely to feel self-confident. Thus, reflect on whether you feel some deficits in any of the above. There are things you can do to get a firmer sense of control.
Self-control is sometimes related to discipline, which means the ability to delay immediate gratification for a more important future goal. If you tend to be spontaneous, impulsive, or rebellious, then it's easy for you to lose sight of the bigger picture and it's hard for you to follow good learning procedures, which can easily derail your learning process. Some ways to improve your self-control over time:
improve your big-picture thinking so that you don't forget about your ultimate goal (through Ne)
learn the value of following good methods/procedures for achieving a goal (stop resisting Si)
structure your environment more intentionally to eliminate distractions/temptations and reward progress (tap into Te)
Having enough control over the direction of your life often relates to your ability to make good decisions. If you tend to be very emotional, indecisive, or easily overwhelmed by too much information, then it indicates you don't have a good system for processing the information required to inform your decisions. One way to improve your information processing ability is to improve your critical thinking skills. Critical thinking involves parsing information correctly, understanding its meaning, and systematizing information, in service of determining the best course of action (see past posts and recommended books). When learning, not being able to organize information and create feasible plans means slow progress.
Feeling a sense of control over the environment is often related to problem-solving skills. What happens when you meet a problem or challenge? Anxiety? Panic? Anger? Spiraling out of control? To have good problem-solving skills involves: deducing cause and effect, analyzing situations objectively, drawing valid conclusions, and generating good ideas and action-plans. Problem-solving is an important part of the critical thinking skills mentioned above. The process of learning is never completely smooth. You are bound to meet challenges and obstacles, so how do you address them? Self-confident people don't tend to focus on how they feel about problems, rather, they mostly focus on the problem itself and try to solve it as quickly as possible. When the problem is gone, the negative feelings go away.
II. SELF-EFFICACY arises from the degree to which you have faith in yourself, specifically your abilities. Efficacy means being able to bring forth an intended result (effectively) or reach an intended goal (efficiently). When you meet a problem/challenge, do you believe you have enough knowledge and skill to overcome it? If so, you have good self-efficacy. If not, do you believe, with enough dedicated learning and improvement, you can overcome it eventually? That is also good self-efficacy. In essence, it means you believe in yourself, with regard to possessing the resources or being able to obtain the resources necessary to succeed in reaching your goals.
Self-efficacy is sometimes related to competency and mastery. Being young and inexperienced, it's normal to have lower self-efficacy than someone older and wiser. In the learning process, it's important to have compassion for yourself and evaluate your progress fairly. Is the level of competency/mastery you expect from yourself proportional to the reality of your situation? If you haven't had many learning opportunities, through no fault of your own, then you shouldn't feel ashamed for being a bit "behind". This is NOT a personal flaw/failing that deserves punishment.
Note that "ahead" or "behind" are relative terms, meaning they can be understood from different perspectives, so are you using the right perspective? For example, are you evaluating yourself through your own eyes, through the eyes of your rivals, or through the eyes of an expert on the subject matter? Use fair and reasonable benchmarks/standards to measure where you are and where you should be. One reason people of any age suffer self-doubt is because they are too honest about what they don't know or can't do, to the point where they become dismissive of what they do know and can do. It's very important to be objective and balanced when assessing what you lack by also fully recognizing what you already possess or have achieved so far.
In my humble opinion, I believe people already possess everything they need to have good self-efficacy. Human beings evolved to be adaptable and that is largely how they have succeeded as a species. You have the capacity to learn and adapt to your environment. Get back in touch with it, have faith in it, and harness it as necessary. Instead of thinking there's only ONE WAY things should/must go, be more flexible and open to alternatives (use Ne).
III. SELF-ESTEEM refers to how you generally feel about yourself. This is usually related to the kinds of beliefs you have about yourself and the part they play in constructing your self-concept. The beliefs you have about yourself (e.g. about who you are and what you are capable of) are heavily influenced by your past experiences.
One of the most common signs of low self-esteem is negative self-talk. Observe the kinds of things you say to yourself in your head. Is it mostly negative, neutral, or positive? If it's mostly negative, how are you meant to feel good about yourself? People with low self-esteem say very nasty things to themselves that they would never dream of saying to others. Why the double standard? As a "sweet" person, you have empathy for others, so be sure to extend the same empathy to yourself.
An example related to learning: I've unfortunately known too many students to abandon a subject simply because one of their (jerkass) teachers told them they would never be good at it. The negative experience led them to form the belief that "they weren't meant to study it" and couldn't succeed even if they tried. Every time they encountered the subject, the belief would rise up and they'd talk themselves out of trying. Of course, watching themselves fall further and further behind through repeated failures made them feel worse and worse about themselves. Self-esteem can be damaged in a vicious cycle: By believing the worst of yourself, you aren't properly motivated to learn and improve, and then you meet failure after failure, which then confirms your negative beliefs about yourself.
One good way to tackle low self-esteem is cognitive-behavioral therapy. A cognitive-behavioral therapist is trained to bring to light your underlying beliefs (and how they interact with your feelings and behaviors). By bringing unrealistic beliefs into consciousness, you open up space to change them or adjust them to be better aligned with reality. Perhaps you need to reflect on the beliefs you have about yourself, regarding who you are/aren't, who you're supposed/not supposed to be, what you hope/don't hope to be, what you are/aren't capable of, etc. Are your beliefs attuned to your current reality? Negative past experiences don't have to dictate your future, but they will if you're unaware of how they still influence you today.
IV. SELF-WORTH refers to feeling "good enough", specifically whether you believe you are worthy of acceptance and love. When you're young, your sense of self-worth arises in large part from how you were regularly treated by the people around you. If you grew up in an environment where love was conditional, then your self-worth likely became tied to those conditions. For example, if your parents only show you love when you get As in school, it's likely that your self-worth will become tied to your academic performance and future professional success.
Self-worth can also be damaged in a vicious cycle. If you believe you aren't worthy of love, then you signal to others that it's okay to treat you poorly, which reinforces the idea that you aren't worthy. One common way people defend against low self-worth is to make themselves into something "better" or more "worthy" to their social environment, or to obtain something they can offer in exchange for social validation of their worth (e.g. wealth or status). This striving can lead to problems with overachieving, perfectionism, anxiety, depression, self-blame, or self-harm.
One common way to tell if you suffer self-worth issues is if you are often engaged in social comparison that leads you to envy people you deem somehow "superior" to you and/or feel shame about being "inferior" to them. If that's the case, it's likely that you need to correct some faulty thinking patterns:
Don't make illogical comparisons, such as comparing your first step against someone else's thousandth step. These kinds of illogical comparisons exacerbate feelings of unworthiness. You're inflicting pain upon yourself by thinking this way.
Don't be superficial and judge people only by their cover. Remember, you don't really know what someone went through to get where they are today. Perhaps if you knew the full story, their situation wouldn't seem very enviable at all. Maybe you want to play golf as well as Tiger Woods, but would you also want to give up your childhood and constantly suffer harsh treatment as he did?
Don't expect that every person should be the same, know the same things, have the same abilities, live the same life, etc. Respect individuality, which means allow for differences between yourself and others. Understand that everyone has their own path in life rather than believing everyone should conform to the same crude standard (i.e. avoid Te loop).
Do you desperately need everyone to like you or think you're great? Wanting the approval of toxic people is basically granting them power over you. Don't hurt yourself by trying to become something you're not just because someone triggered your insecurity. Insecurity is your problem, not their problem. It is the insecurity itself you need to face up to by reflecting on where it really comes from and what it says about your ability to accept and love yourself as you are (this is related to problems with Fi development in ENFPs).
What many people with low self-worth don't understand is that self-worth starts from within; it doesn't come from the people out there. When you're able to accept and love yourself and stand proud in who you are (without all those "conditions" that were imposed upon you earlier in life), you'll then be capable of teaching others to respect you. With healthy pride in yourself, it's far easier to be assertive, set boundaries, and advocate for your needs. Why? Because you firmly believe you matter, you have a right to the space you inhabit, you have a right to be yourself, and you deserve to be treated as an equal. It's also easier to ignore, dismiss, or eject toxic people when you finally realize that you don't need or want anything from them.
All four of these concepts relate to how you perceive and evaluate yourself, but from different angles. You mention feeling insecure, but which of the above gets closer to the root of the issue? It's important to be more precise about identifying the problem if you hope to come up with the right solution.
Hi mbti, i am an ENFP. I seem to have no problems with close friends and my wife but i have problems with more "surface" relationships and i cannot seem to "fake it" as well as the rest. What is wrong with me? I think this issue stems from teenage trauma where i was backstabbed by a very fake narcissist. He was very two faced and spreaded lies about me to the masses and tried to steal my girlfriend. I placed a lot of trust in the wrong person and got betrayed. The problem is that it became a
[con't: mental block. This is so stupid, i want to be able to be myself and be a better conversationalist to people, not just close friends or wife! Ps - another thing that makes me annoyed that i cannot fake it is this: i was talking to many friends and they mentioned wealthy high income earners who are working jobs they hate but still succeeded. I dunno if this is mbti related but this is sooo annoying! I am a high income earner myself but it is due to passion in my field and dedication. It is an inseparable part of my identity. IF i was ever in a profession i hated, it would show immediately and i would get kicked out. Which didnt happen.]
There are two issues to address:
1) Ego Development Problems: When people are at low levels of ego development, they do not see the world objectively. They are only able to see the world through the distorted lens of their unresolved ego dramas/traumas of the past. This woeful lack of objectivity should be of particular concern for NFPs because of the primacy they give to their past experiences when formulating their worldview. Having a distorted worldview enables faulty beliefs and poor decision-making.
For instance, your negative relationship experience of the past has led you to see new people as a potential threat to be defended against. You aren't able to show who you really are or see people for who they really are, so on what basis can you develop a healthy and satisfying relationship with them? Your past pain has hijacked your mind because, when you believe your "feelings" are an accurate representation of reality, you have no reason to question them, let alone act against them. You dutifully obey their every command to hide, evade, or run.
Worse yet, instead of doing the work of resolving and letting go of your past, the strategy you believe you should resort to is "faking it", which leads you even further away from your purported goal of having good relationships with people (a symptom of Te loop). When you wear a mask, nobody can see who you really are, which shields you from the pain of being hurt, but it also blocks you from forming meaningful connections - it is an unhealthy defense mechanism. You have made the choice, again and again, to forsake connection because you give first priority to your past pain during the decision-making process (a symptom of Si grip).
You have put the mental block in place and it is up to you to remove it by facing up to your pain and putting it in the right perspective. You call the block "stupid", as though you're smart/aware enough to know what's up, but it is just an empty performance as long as you keep choosing to let past pain run your present life. I have already written a lot about getting closure on the past, see the tags page.
2) Function Development Problems: Immature/unhealthy FPs generally suffer from self-esteem issues due to Fi development problems. Instead of facing up to those issues, it's easier for them to deflect and shift the focus onto others. It's quite common for FPs to blame/envy/resent others for the things they can't get a good grip on in themselves - their judgmentalness is a clear window into their soul. This is how FPs contribute to their stereotype of being moralizing and self-righteous.
Because you struggle with this issue of "faking it" and project it out into the world, all you see around you is how others fake it, without acknowledging how presumptuous and insulting it is to judge people like that. Are you claiming to understand people's inner thought processes when they make big decisions, or are your judgments entirely tainted by your own struggles with "authenticity"?
For instance, have you considered the fact that many people do not have the socioeconomic means to make their job "an inseparable part of their identity"? Have you considered the fact that different people approach life differently and some do not need/want to make their job a part of their identity because it would be unhealthy for them to do so? Failure to consider multiple possibilities reflects poorly on your Ne development.
You seem to equivocate about whether "faking it" is good or bad, but it's apparent you consider it bad. You chose the word "fake" which has obviously negative connotations, and you try to place yourself on moral high ground by claiming you are incapable of "fakeness". By concocting this moral hierarchy between yourself and others, you actively destroy the empathy you need for encouraging deeper mutual understanding, thus sabotaging your purported goal of having good relationships with people.
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In short, ego development and function development issues have come together to form the bigger problem of you not having the courage to be yourself, which leads you to have an unhealthy fixation on anyone who can't be themselves as you define it. This is a great example of having a distorted worldview.
One of the main purposes of learning about different personality types is to understand, accept, and honor individual differences. Instead of treating new people as individuals, with the trust, openness, and understanding they deserve at the start of a relationship, you allow your negative feelings and distorted judgments to take over and corrupt the socializing process.
Healthy Fi:
You fully accept yourself.
You admit your limitations and weaknesses.
You are sincere and authentic.
You trust your feelings to guide you well.
You have good moral judgment.
You always make an effort to better understand and appreciate what makes people unique and different.
You actively make space for everyone to express themselves authentically.
You take people's behavior in stride because you set and enforce appropriate emotional boundaries.
You need not depend on others for validation because you understand that self-worth comes from within.
Unhealthy Fi:
You frequently struggle with shame or self-reproach.
You fear having your limitations and weaknesses exposed.
You try to avoid/deny/circumvent the truth about yourself.
You are driven by unresolved negative feelings and emotions.
You have questionable/problematic moral judgment.
You can't understand those who are different from you and cast them in a negative light as necessary to soothe your ego.
You are afraid to be yourself (and feel jealous when others are braver than you).
You take people's behavior too personally whenever it triggers your low self-esteem.
You are deeply afraid of being invalidated and feeling like a nothing or nobody.
For ENFPs, socializing successfully requires developing mature Ne and healthy Fi, as per the Type Dev Guide. It seems like you have lots of work to do.
Hi mbti notes, can someone with an fi aux value prestige and achievement without being in a loop? What's the difference between valuing achievement for its own sake and being driven to prove oneself by inferiority complex (Te loop)? My type is ENFP if it helps. Thanks
One is a positive motivation that contributes something genuinely good to life; the other is a negative motivation, using the wrong methods of compensating for something missing in life. A negative motivation sets up the wrong intention behind your actions, which leads you in the wrong direction, away from growth. It's not always easy to tell the difference. Sometimes, you have to wait for some results to come in and re-evaluate.
To understand the difference, you have to understand the difference between a need and a desire. Like all people, you need healthy self-esteem. It's a legitimate human need. When you grow up in an environment that does not encourage you to have healthy self-esteem or even actively destroys your self-esteem, you don't learn the appropriate ways of fulfilling the need for healthy self-esteem. This makes it difficult to develop healthy Fi because you've come to believe there's something inherently wrong with you. Nobody likes feeling that way, so how you go about "fixing" the problem is the crux of the matter.
You could acknowledge that you need healthy self-esteem and find an appropriate and constructive way of fulfilling the need, through developing healthy Fi self-acceptance and self-validation and developing healthy Te for getting your life in better order. This involves living life on your own terms, doing whatever is necessary for nurturing your emotional well-being. Or, you could chase after external validation through Te loop in an endless cycle of ups and downs, getting addicted to the "feel good" moments of "success", and trying your darnedest to evade the negative effects of self-harm. The healthy path of intelligently fulfilling psychological needs positions you well for growing as a person and pursing goals for the right reasons. The unhealthy path of chasing superficial desires slowly buries you in regret because the self-harm accumulates and eventually catches up with you in the form of immense pain.
Which is more important to you: 1) Putting in a lifetime of hard work to build your sense of self up properly from the ground up so that you can honestly call yourself a person of integrity? Or 2) Clinging to the definitions of "success" that were dictated to you by those who invalidated you, in an effort to finally win the validation from them that you felt robbed of? If you are capable of brutal self-honesty, you know the answer and whether you are trying to deny the truth of your intentions. The purpose of type development is to become more aware of how maladaptive thinking works, so that you create an opportunity to choose differently.
hello again, I'm the enfp asker from here /post/699391809598685185, my plan was to develop Te to be able to better organise my life and especially studies, I'm at my final year in med school and I've been doing really bad in the last few years due to emotional problems, procrastination, etc... so I thought the more I developed Fi, the more this would be resolved, but I noticed that even while I'm going through the emotional intelligence list you provided I'm still procrastinating (1)
[con't: and so I thought this would be a Te problem, and I agree with you on this being a defense mechanism, I have caught myself a few times ‘logically’ telling myself to go through with stuff that aren’t exactly ‘right’ or ‘empathetic’ to reach goals so I think this part of your answer 100% applies to me.]
Procrastination is, more often than not, an emotional problem, so it is very likely related to Fi development issues, insofar as you have a lot of difficulty managing and regulating your emotions. You have a tendency to avoid negative or uncomfortable emotions rather than confront them and channel them into the right behaviors?
Avoid conflating Te with "organizing". Functions shouldn't be thought of as skills. Anyone can learn and improve their organization skill as necessary to function better in everyday life. The ability to organize is a necessary life skill for anyone who hopes to make progress in any capacity.
Whether working on organization skill is related to function development depends on what is actually motivating your desire to learn and improve it. For example, if you've suffered quite a lot throughout your life from being woefully disorganized, learning to be more organized would help you reduce the stress of being a hot mess, right? Thus, your desire to improve your organization skill would be about caring better for your emotional well-being, so it would ultimately be more related to Fi development, wouldn't it? This is something very different than "logically" rationalizing "goal driven" behavior just to mindlessly accrue "rewards" that aren't ultimately good for you (i.e. Te loop).
For function development to progress optimally, one must nurture radical honesty, in being completely aware and transparent about one's motivations. When you try to develop your functions for problematic/egotistical reasons, you are likely to end up on the wrong path.
