INFPs in the workplace - Struggles and Strengths:

Are you an INFP who feels like your personality is holding you back at work? Think again. In this video, I share how I leveraged my unique strengths to excel in my career, and offer strategies for overcoming common workplace challenges faced by INFPs. Join me as I explore how to find fulfillment and meaning in your work as an INFP. Let's unlock the potential of our personalities and thrive in our careers.

Do you feel like your INFP personality type holds you back in the workplace? Well, think again. In this video, I'm going to tell you how to use your personality type in a better way that's more fulfilling for you and actually helps your coworkers as well. Let's call them 'workmates.' What is that? Colleagues? There you go.

What's up, legend? It's Sherman here from Geek Psychology, where I help geeks, gamers, and creatives live more fulfilling lives by unlocking the strengths of their personality type. And in this one, we're talking about INFPs in the workplace. This can be a struggle. I understand. I've been through it as an INFP myself. My bosses hated me, and they just didn't like that I was so slow and not methodical and organized with everything that I did. And I didn't really care about it. I was just lazy because I wasn't inspired by it. And so, that's what I want to tell you about in this video, and how to incorporate your personality type into your job, whatever that is, and some suggestions for what you should or could do for a career.

So, the first question is, how can INFPs leverage the strengths of their personality type for their career? Well, you need to understand your strengths as an INFP first. And this is a mixture of two characters, as I call them. They're actually cognitive functions, part of your personality type, but I call them characters because I personify everything. So, you have the Resonating Soul, that's introverted feeling technically. And this is about making choices and decisions that are aligned with your conscience and your values, what feels good to you, and staying away from what feels bad. And a lot of times, it's difficult to explain that. So, when you're making decisions, it can kind of be this slow, trotting process, and that's part of the issue, is that it's like kind of sifting through your values and your emotions and your identity to find the key words to explain why you made this decision. And people don't really have time for that in a lot of careers, and it's aggravating for other people.

The other strength, though, and that is a strength, the other strength, though, is your extroverted intuition, technically. It's about brainstorming, connecting ideas, thinking outside the box, and connecting this thing to this thing to this thing in a mad scientist kind of way. And I call it the Innovating Explorer. So, you have these two characters, the Soul and the Explorer. You mash them together, and you have a lot of the superpowers that INFPs bring to the world. And that is creativity tied to the core human component, what it means to be human, and deep emotional exploration. So, if you can bring those to your career or your job, you're going to provide your company or whatever it is, the people around you, your coworkers, with a new perspective, right? And a deeper understanding of who they are and why they're doing what they're doing, and the underlying intentions below that. And also, you can problem solve by invoking that Explorer and delving into it and saying, "Well, what are the different things that we could possibly do with this, and how much fun could we have?" So, you're really going to want to bring those into the career and the job itself.

Sometimes it's hard to do that, right? If you're a scientist, and you might be, it's not necessarily one of the career paths that a lot of INFPs go to but you could be, it's going to be hard to find a place for you within that right? But there's always going to be a human interaction side of things and a human understanding side of whatever the job is, even if you're working in IT. You're probably not going to be as focused on the coding and product development as well. How is this going to impact people? How is this going to shape one other person's life? And that perspective is necessary in all things.

Personally, as an INFP, I might be a little biased, but I really do feel that that's one thing the world really needs is that caring perspective. So bring that into the job, bring that forward, highlight it, present it to your boss or to your co-workers and say, "This is what I bring to the table, and this is how I can help. I can help mediate and guide people through these conflicts that are naturally going to happen when you bring two people together in any fashion. They're not going to always see eye to eye, and you can help navigate that."

You can help be there and say, "Well, I think this person is going through this based on what they're saying right now. How do you feel about it?" And you can kind of interpret and translate interpersonally because of your intrapersonal self-understanding. And I think that's a beautiful gift that you can bring to the table for this, that will help you stand out in your career.

Eventually, though, you will probably pick up a bunch of skills on organization, how to be more extroverted in a lot of ways, how to be more proactive with your goals, setting boundaries, and standing up for yourself and things like that, which are big struggle points for most INFPs, especially up into mid-20s or even a little bit later. Hopefully, you learn those skills as you're going through the process, and you can be more fulfilled as you seek higher positions or whatever it is you want to do. Or just work enough that you can save enough money and go live in a cabin in the woods with your cat, drinking some tea, and listening to some nice chill music, too, because that's a good life right there.

So, if you're an INFP, don't feel like you have to change who you are to fit in at work. Embrace your strengths, bring them forward, and use them to your advantage. You have so much to offer, and the world needs what you have to give.