If you haven’t taken the Myers-Briggs personality test yet, you should do so whenever you can. Used in marketing and counseling, MBTI provides you with a snapshot of your personality, your strengths, and your weaknesses in the form of a four-lettered code. Each letter represents a category of personality, with two preferences -- extroverted (E) or introverted (I), intuitive (N) or sensing (S), thinking (T) or feeling (F), judging (J) or perceiving (P).
I first took the online Myers-Briggs Indicator test in my junior year of high school, and I found out that I was an ENTP -- extroverted, intuitive, thinking, and perceiving. ENTPs are known for their sharp, argumentative skills -- they could start an fight with a chair if they wanted to. Creative, outspoken, witty, charismatic. The quintessential hipster.
But, while a lot of the specific details were spot-on, the broader, more macroscopic information didn’t fit me at all. I harbor ENTP-like individualism, but I’m also very people-oriented -- these emotional, interpersonal skills have encouraged me to pursue a career in medicine. Sure, I’m a logical person, but I don’t define myself as argumentative, which can be considered the core characteristic of an ENTP -- the love of arguing for the sake of arguing. If anything, I avoid confrontation. And, I hate chaos. I hate uncertainty. I’m neurotic, and I like being in control of things. I’m not one to constantly break the rules, though I do question authority on a regular basis. I’m an avid perfectionist, always trying to fix something in myself that isn’t wrong.
Now that I think about it, many aspects of my personality are completely antithetical to the ENTP’s rebellious, “let it go” attitude.
Now, obviously, no personality test can box you into a set of letters or suck you into a polarizing vortex of dichotomies. No personality test can capture the nuances of your character -- no two individuals are completely alike, anyway. So, I just dismissed these huge differences as just disparity in generalization. Despite such telling signs, I just declared myself an ENTP, loud and proud.
It wasn’t until this year, my freshman year in college, when I had to take the test again for a class assignment. The result? Inconclusive. I obviously preferred intuition over sensing, and I already knew I was more extroverted than introverted anyway. But, the rest of the result was just a giant question mark. 50% T, 50% F. 50% J, 50% P. I decided to ditch the test surrounding the MBTI categories and took a cognitive functioning test whose results corresponded with the MBTI types (you can take the test here or here). The cognitive functioning usually never lies because it specifically targets your thought and decision-making processes. So, it’s always good to verify your MBTI type after taking an online personality test, since questions in online personality assessments can be too biased or ambiguous to be accurate.
The cognitive functioning test gave me a much more definite answer: ENFJ -- extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging. ENFJs share a lot in common with ENTPs: the same charisma, the same charm, the same passion, the same drive. And, these were the qualities I identified with while reading the description for the ENTP personality type. But, unlike the ENTP, the ENFJ values altruism over argumentation. But, after looking at multiple descriptions from various websites, I realized that the ENFJ type fit me both microscopically and macroscopically. It made perfect sense to me.
Nowadays, I feel much more comfortable with the fact that I have finally gained a more accurate insight into who I am, but I also understand that I shouldn’t feel compelled to become who I am “supposed” to be. I now know not to pigeonhole myself. My personality is dynamic and malleable, constantly shaped by my dreams and experiences. I want to develop further as an individual. I want to be successful. But, before I can step on the right path to success, I have to hear the other side and fully understand strengths and weaknesses. That way, I could focus on the underdeveloped aspects of my personality and mature into the strong, independent woman I am destined to be.
