In writing about Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), there is one thing I want to convey from the get go. And that’s why I believe MBTI is valid & important.
My NFness (yes, coined the term) provides me with a keen need to understand myself & others. By knowing people’s personality, it allows me from not putting them in a box. Rather, to understand them & their story, in order to meet them where they are at. Not only to meet them, but to encourage them to become who they were designed to be. It’s absolutely critical in my mind to know one’s self & others, in order to give & receive grace. It’s also critical in knowing personalities to best teach & give direction (ENFJs are best known for this as the Teacher).
In knowing yourself better & those around you, you will be able to improve communication, connection, & community. I see this benefiting me in parenting as I seek to understand how to relate with my children; as well as, how to direct, discipline & guide them. I’m recognizing that there is not a one size fits all. Plus, it makes the handiwork of God even more inspiring & imaginative to me.
In the next post I will briefly discuss the letters of Myers-Briggs. Until then, do you agree that personality tests are important? Why or why not? How have you found them useful or a hindrance?
Backdoor Hospitality 
Hey Kamille! Well, I am personally a bit obsessed with the Myers-Briggs myself. 🙂 I'm an ISTJ and I love knowing others' types (I'm pretty good at guessing too). I find the MBTI especially useful in helping me figure out ways to work well with people. If I find myself getting frustrated with how a project is going or why I can't seem to see eye to eye with someone, it helps me to step back and analyze the situation – how might they be approaching this differently than me? How might they be processing the situation differently? I'm a strong SJ, so learning to recognize the differences between myself and NFs or strong Ps has helped me be a better team player – instead of just trying to get things done my way. 🙂 Looking forward to this series!
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I definitely like personality tests, et cetera, and find them to be useful tools (though admiteddly, and perhaps this is the I in me, I find it far more interesting to research my own types than others' types). That said, they can be abused – during my year Miracle Mountain Ranch's School of Discipleship, we studied seven 'spiritual gifts' – I forget what verse they based it off of, but basically the idea is that every Christian has one. (Ironically, m gift was 'teacher', as were several of my close friends.) One thing I did find, though, was that when someone had certain character flaws / issues they were going through / sins they were dealing with, they would cloak themselves with "well, I'm a <insert gift here>, it's just who I am, you need to deal" – not everyone did this, obviously, but several had a tenden cy to. And it's like.. well, yeah, you may struggle with the particular issue because of that, but it doesn't mean that I don't struggle with my own issues because of -my- personality/gift/whatever as well… and it certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't work on them!..just my two cents. Looking forward to the rest of this series!
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Sara, thanks for your response. It's nice to meet a fellow MBTI nerd (is it okay to use that term?). I agree with you about it being useful to understand others & work better in groups. One thing I have found as an ENFJ is I'm more interested in bringing organizational development within relationships; but, not necessarily within systems. I know many SJs who like bringing more efficient systematics to organizations, while NFs it's about relational development. We need each other though. I have realized I need to be surrounded by SJs with my visionary ramblings. People like yourself bring order to the chaos twirling in my head:)
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Hannah EliseThank you for sharing. I completely see your point in the abuse of personality findings. One thing I have found is that we all have issues & we have a choice on whether, we as people (not NFs, SJs, NTs, SPs) want to seek healing & change. It's being able to see an immature ESFJ to a mature ESFJ…they will look different. I know for myself I looked different in my early 20s to now in my early 30s. I was lead more based off of my F & it dictated a lot more than it should have. Going through counseling & healing & doing the hard work of dealing with my "stuff" allowed me more freedom in being an ENFJ. Not giving excuse or simply saying, "Well, this is who I am." Plain & simple is we are all to love people regardless of personality type. That's how I feel about it:) Thank you for taking the time to write your experiences & story.
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My reason for MBTI-love is that is provides a vocabulary, not only for discussing important aspects of humanity, but also for emphasizing the inherent equality/value of our differences in a way that "you're different, I'll love you anyway because it's the mature/Christian thing to do" just can't.And my "type" comes down to this: if you "believe in" cognitive functions (yes, I'm a closet-geek too; mostly b/c I worked so hard to figure out the INFJ/P question) I can't be anything but INFJ. If you don't believe in CFs (my INTP friend pointed out CFs haven't been vigorously studied/verified the way the types themselves have; their own momentum/in-teaching has perpetuated their status/place in personality theory), I have to be INFP.Since CFs have made such a difference in my understanding of myself (again, because of the power of naming and having vocabulary for preciously inexpressible elements and distinctions) I usually sit with the first camp. Usually.Peace to you.
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I just read at the beginning of your series that you had a major loss and wanted to maybe get back on track by doing this 31 day thing but it looks as if you never finished because of your circumstances…What I want to do for you is write a sincere comment on every single post till day 18 as a token of my appreciation for your efforts as well as to say keep going and never quit no matter what life throws at you. I'm cheering for you.
Personality tests are great for finding out how to communicate with the many different types of people on the planet. Its just bad when people use InterActive to label and limit who a person is and what they can do.
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Kirshner–thank you for the encouragement. It does take a lot of work to write all of this out, so now it's getting back on the horse.
Warmly–Kamille
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