Am I an INFJ or an INFP?

Today's question is from Annie, and the question is:

"Am I an INFJ or an INFP? I'm confused about my type. When I do free online tests, I most often get INFJ, INFP and even an ENFP. I'm definitely NOT an extrovert. As an MBTI professional, please can you shed light on how I can know my type, and why I keep getting different results with the online tests."

Firstly, thank you Annie for this question, it’s a great question. It’s a question that a lot of people struggle with out there. Those of us who are into personality tools, like Myers-Briggs or Enneagram, can sometimes feel confused if we’re not really in preference with a specific type. So, if there are differences to our wiring we may be uncertain, sometimes for years, about what our type is. Thank you so much, Annie, for asking this question. I think it will help a lot of other people too.

Let me first acknowledge all the good intentions that these free online tests offer. A lot of clarity has been achieved with some of these tests. While most of them want to offer a solution to the user, some of them are used as what’s called a ‘lead magnet’ to capture our email addresses for further usage. So they capture your email address and then utilize that email address in different ways.

While most of the intention is great and I believe the intent is pure, as the 2009 song by In Fear and Faith states: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.“ What I mean by this, because that might sound a bit harsh, is that many of these tests have good intent, but do not necessarily have the goods to deliver an accurate result.

I don’t know if you know that the official stance of the Myers Briggs Company is that every person- you, me, all of us- gets to decide their best fit type themselves? Did you know that? So it's not a free online test that then diagnoses you, and it’s not one of these unqualified "profilers' who give you their opinion about who you are. That’s obviously their opinion. The official MBTI assessment process, or the official MBTI description of type, is the one that can actually give you a lot of clarity on that.

The reason you keep getting different results is that these "tests" don't have the nearly 100 years of research and psychoanalysis that MBTI has invested in creating their system and assessments. Any time you hear the word test in relation to MBTI out there in the world, it's likely that the assessment is not official. Official MBTI practitioners don't use the word "test", it is always an assessment. That’s something to keep an eye out for.

It is you who gets to nominate your best fit personality type. That’s it, just you. YOU have all the power in your personal development process, or your professional development process, to decide how you come to that conclusion. If you need help getting to that conclusion, YOU get to decide to work with a seasoned professional when you get stuck. It’s the recognition of your own type, or the qualities of your type, when you hear it presented to you from the original source, which is the Myers-Briggs Company. Not some arbitrary person somewhere in the ether. They don’t get to decide who you are.

Now, to know if you are an INFP or an INFJ, this varies. Some people read an official description of their type and they think “That’s me!” and recognize themselves in the text. Some people might do one of these tests online and think “There’s no doubt in my mind. This is me. I know exactly who I am.” But others struggle - sometimes for years - to come to a conclusion about their type. You're not alone with this. For someone like you, I recommend that you get some help around this. If you’ve been struggling for years try and get some help with a professional so that you can get yourself professionally assessed through a certified MBTI practitioner. I say this because everybody has an opinion but a certified MBTI practitioner who practices this discipline as part of their profession will be able to ask you exactly the right questions needed to then identify what your best fit type is. So, it’s completely ok to ask for help, but know where you’re getting the help from.

There are several ways these professionals can help you. An assessment can take several forms, depending on whether you simply want to know your 4-letter type, and again YOU are in charge of that process, or you want to take a deeper dive into your hidden facets of strengths and challenges.

We at the Sumiloff Academy of Integration and the INFX Project offer two services:

1. the Self-decoding workshop recording- which will confirm your 4-letter type. That recording is yours, you can do it at home at your own leisure. It’s about 2- 2.5 hours long and you follow the process, answer the questions, and by the end of the whole workshop recording you will come to a conclusion that is right for you.

2. Some people may want to take a deeper dive into their hidden facet pairs, or if you don’t yet have clarity, you may want to do a full Personality Decoding process, which includes the self-decoding workshop, an extensive online MBTI Global Step II assessment, and a one on one session with me to strategize how to make the most out of your assessment results in your everyday life.

Those are some of the options we have. Whatever way you choose to go about discovering whether you’re an INFJ or an INFP make sure that you understand that YOU get to nominate your best fit type. If you feel like you don’t have enough information to do that, you can work with a professional person with actual Myers-Briggs Company training behind them so they can ask you the right questions that will then help you identify your best fit type.

There’s so much amazing clarity to be found around your facets that you might have, your strengths and challenges in life, as well as what you should be working on to move on to the next level of your own personal development. Again, whatever you go for, be sure that you’re working with a professional that has you in the driver's seat.

So, if what we have covered today speaks to you, or you want to confirm your best-fit MBTI type with some outside help, send us an email at desk@infxproject.com or desk@merjasumiloff.com and we will help you with your profiling challenge. We can give you some ideas and ask you some preliminary questions to help figure out exactly what you need.

I hope you enjoyed this question and answer. I would love to hear your main take-aways from it in the comments. I would also like to encourage you to share your own experiences about this topic on our forums. Please feel free to share this blog post on your profile and list the main points you want to discover, or talk more about.

Thank you for sharing this space with me today, and thank you for being a part of our vision of creating more compassionate and effective individuals and leaders all around the world!

I wish for you a day full of wonder.

I’m Merja Sumiloff. I’m the Personality Decoder and I show my clients and people who come to me how to heal and grow your relationships without massive disruption to your day-to-day life.