[INFJ] Once INFJ always INJF

S

Sorn

Community Member
MBTI
INFJ
What happens when an INFJ realizes that he is only being taken advantage of when he puts himself out for others?

Will he develop into a different type, or is he strong enough to withstand these demands?

Those of you who have been studying MB typing for some time,
have you seen a trend in your classification?
 
According to mbti itself, your type doesn't change.
However, stressors can lead you toward your shadow type progressively, which will in essence cause you to type differently when testing.
There is also some contentious debate over type changing throughout the lifespan.
Personality itself (not exclusive to mbti) is relatively stable, but can change through trauma as well as with small incremental changes over a long period of time.
So to me it stands to reason that while rare, your personality may change over many decades and/or through extreme types of trauma.

I don't personally think the realization of being taken advantage of qualifies as extreme trauma.
It will probably not result in a type change, but will result in actionable behavioral changes, potentially.
mbti is not a reliable predictor of behavior.
 
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As Wyote said, we don't change who we are at our core.

There will always be people out there looking for doormats to step on. They don't care who they use, we just make it easy for them.

I don't think it's healthy to stop offering to help, or an ear, or whatever. We want to be there for people. By walling ourselves off we're more likely to become paranoid or a recluse... or angry at the world.
Just apply basic management skills when offering help: put limits on it and ask others to pull their weight. If you run into a user, confront them before stopping all help. Give them a chance to right up.
 
I also believe that we are not changing tremendously in the basic things. However, I do think we are changing in how we interact with the world around. It was only a few years ago when I found out that I was an INFJ-A. A lot of things in my life became clearer to me after that. But I have also been more concerned about my type since then. INFJ as some kind of blueprint that I automatically live up to? Or a blueprint that shows me how I want to be?
INFJ has almost too many good aspects, as it is often presented. Of course, there are also negative examples, but I do not emulate them. But I also believe that just the realization that I am INFJ has changed my view of the world. How far this
change will go, I do not know. It is perhaps like a self-fulfilling prophecy, or an intensifying self-influence.
 
It's important to not put too much stock into typology, nor anything else really.
Hyper focus can lead down some bad roads.

Negative aspects reveal themselves during difficult times. They manifest differently for everyone.
 
Just from today I can give a simple example.
I wanted to point out some missing information in a safety-relevant document to my boss.
He ignored my requests and attacked me personally.
Now there is no way I am going to beg him to allow me to help him.
Let him fight with the security auditors himself. I just feel sorry for my colleagues who may have to suffer because of the lack of this information.
He will not remember my good expertise later, but only that we had argued.

In the past, I wouldn't have given up so quickly, but would have insisted that we needed to fix the bugs.
Now I told myself it's not my problem, and it's not my job.
 
Sorn said:
Just from today I can give a simple example.
I wanted to point out some missing information in a safety-relevant document to my boss.
He ignored my requests and attacked me personally.
Now there is no way I am going to beg him to allow me to help him.
Let him fight with the security auditors himself. I just feel sorry for my colleagues who may have to suffer because of the lack of this information.
He will not remember my good expertise later, but only that we had argued.

In the past, I wouldn't have given up so quickly, but would have insisted that we needed to fix the bugs.
Now I told myself it's not my problem, and it's not my job.
Click to expand...
To me, it sounds like your boss is beyond stressed if he chose to argue over listening to information that could have helped.
You chose wisely to leave it on the table. Perhaps set a memo in email his way, and CC someone else also responsible for that document, that way you know you did all you could and not kick yourself later. Doesn't sound like you're out for gratitude.

As for you, may I gently suggest you look at your future with this company? It sounds toxic. May be time to expand your horizons, for your own inner peace.
 
Oh no, he was pretty relaxed.
I've been with this company for over 46 years,
I'm going to retire soon anyway. If I wanted to I could leave at any time. I know he didn't want me to.
So I say to myself more and more often that they should do what they want.
 
Sorn said:
What happens when an INFJ realizes that he is only being taken advantage of when he puts himself out for others?

Will he develop into a different type, or is he strong enough to withstand these demands?

Those of you who have been studying MB typing for some time,
have you seen a trend in your classification?
Click to expand...
I agree completely with what @Wyote said. You don't change your core type, but circumstances can push you into using your less preferred functions. They can also make it hard for you to see exactly what are your preferred functions. For example when I first came across MBTI (on a management training course) I was working as an information systems manager in a predominantly INTx research environment. That strongly coloured the way I answered the questions on the MBTI instrument they used and I came out as borderline INTP/J. It was only by reading and pondering it against the function and type descriptions months later that I realised this was wrong. A big problem with Ni as well is that it's very hard to understand what is meant by it, particularly for people who don't use it out of preference and who write some of the info on the web sites. My advice always is don't trust the questionnaires - they are a great starting point for seeking your type but that's all. They are influenced by your social environment and also, if you repeat them a lot or are already familiar with MBTI, wishful thinking can bias the way you answer the questions.

Sorn said:
Just from today I can give a simple example.
I wanted to point out some missing information in a safety-relevant document to my boss.
He ignored my requests and attacked me personally.
Now there is no way I am going to beg him to allow me to help him.
Let him fight with the security auditors himself. I just feel sorry for my colleagues who may have to suffer because of the lack of this information.
He will not remember my good expertise later, but only that we had argued.

In the past, I wouldn't have given up so quickly, but would have insisted that we needed to fix the bugs.
Now I told myself it's not my problem, and it's not my job.
Click to expand...
Without more information, it's not easy to see what went wrong here, so this is just a few thoughts to chew over, in case they help.

A common experience for Ni types is to be right in the wrong kind of way, and that may be what happened to you. What is your bosses type? If he is someone who is an S type, for example, they can be very intolerant of things presented in an N style. Another possibility is if you came across as Fe nagging - it's easy to come over like this without intending to. One of the advantages of an INFJ worldview is that although many other types don't get us, we can get most of them fairly easily. I always found it worth the effort to present things to my superiors in the language of their own types as far as possible - and got to enjoy this as an interesting challenge in its own right.

It could help you if you ask for feedback when things go wrong, maybe a day or two later. This depends on your relationship with the person concerned, but I often found folks were very willing to give feedback in a constructive way and often led to a sharing of feedback rather than being a one-way street.
 
My core type changed in my early 20s. I changed from INFJ to INTJ and it didn't feel like a big jump. The functional changes between the INFJ and INTJ aren't that big as the only change is that thinking and feeling shift between introversion and extroversion in the auxiliary and tertiary functions. I had been working in a field that was logic focused and continued in that field for many years. As my thinking side became more dominant and I communicated more in groups my career advanced. Over time my significant other began to get irritated and needed me to be more feeling centric with our kids, so I went to therapy and gradually moved back into my INFJ core.

I will say that I was always on the border when it came to my thinking and feeling so it wasn't that difficult to change. To me it was really about being balanced and how my behaviors and interactions with people could be helpful to others and myself simultaneously.

I do think I may be more of the exception and if there are people who change then it believe it requires a significant environmental change with respect to small functional changes.
 
My opinion is rather that INFJ have the ability to adapt. Depending on the environment and requirements, we are able to behave optimally. This ability may also be the factor that fundamentally distinguishes an INFJ from other characters. However, this is not opportunism, but rather the skills of a mediator.
 
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