The Comprehensive INFP Survival Guide

by Heidi Priebe

At the end of the day, the key to workplace success for the INFP will always be passion.

caring is the INFP’s superpower. And that to waste their lives at any job that they do not feel inspired by would ultimately be doing themselves and the world around them a great disservice.

I enjoy the fact that if I’m having a bad day, I can throw my headphones on and listen to button poetry or audiobooks.

I enjoy learning new vocabulary every day, mainly because it forces me to read. I have issues when it comes to communicating ideas verbally, so reading helps a lot!”

“I’m a web developer. I love my work. I can put my headphones on a code for hours and no one will bother me. I love tackling a problem and looking for all the possible solutions. Coding may seem like an odd choice for an INFP, but learning coding languages was very similar to learning a foreign language, which I love.”

the bonus of being able to hide away in the office with paperwork!”

“I’m now retired, working as a nature photographer. I like that I can go days without talking to anyone.”

such a DREAM.

I like being alone outside with plants, daydreaming to myself, but I don’t like serving customers so I’m studying Professional Writing in hopes to become a social media marketer for an environmental non for profit one day.”

“I’m a librarian and I couldn’t imagine a job more suited to an INFP. It’s a mix of customer service, book reviewer researcher, community support and historian all wrapped up into one job. Plus, who wouldn’t want to spend all day surrounded by books.”

Unchecked self-interest turns into competitiveness. Unbridled passion bleeds into obsession.

An unhealthy INFP is quick to abandon projects, plans and relationships as soon as their enthusiasm or confidence level wanes.

=/

An unhealthy INFP uses their ability to see things other’s points of view as a means of ‘guilting’ the people around them into behaving the way they’d like.

...ESFJ trait -_-

An unhealthy INFP thrives on the idea of being misunderstood. They hinge their identity on the idea that they are more interesting or intelligent than others.

…Mark lol

the reversal of one’s initial four-function stacking that occurs when a given type experiences stress.

In the INFP’s case, this means they would cease to use Fi, Ne, Si and Te—in that order—and instead filter experiences through the lens of Te, then Si, then Ne and then Fi. This resembles the ESTJ’s natural stack of cognitive functions.

Unfortunately, the INFP tends to neglect extroverted thinking. Because this function is highly entrenched in the concrete realities of what it takes to make a dream work, the INFP often experiences it as their critical inner voice—the one that whispers cruel nothings at them about why their passionate plans are doomed to fail. A fully developed INFP may learn to make friends with their extroverted thinking—considering what it has to say and using its guidance to marry their passions to reality. But an underdeveloped INFP villainizes this function—deciding that it is working against, rather than with them.

By finding the truth inside of the pain, the compassion inside of the betrayal and the undeniably beautiful inside of the tragic. The INFP—perhaps more so than any other type—possesses the unique ability to assimilate what is painful and unforgivable with what is beautiful and worthy of being renewed—and to let it all flow onward together.

An INFP who is able to make sense of the bad things that have happened to them—fitting them into a bigger picture of what it means to love and to lose, to try and to fail, to begin and to end—is an INFP who is able to move on from heartache and trauma. Once they’ve found understanding, they’ve found peace.

their ability to harmoniously integrate their past experiences with their hopes for the future is what saves this type from staying trapped i...

The minor ins and outs of everyday life are easily swept into the flow of greater truths and understanding that the INFP holds inside themselves.

When the INFP finds themselves up against a stubborn, nonabsorbable element, the first thing they will try to do is integrate it, with everything that they have in them. The INFP will withdraw to reflect, to analyze, to feel the full weight of whatever is plaguing them and to try to find a way to work it into their understanding.

because everything is interconnected in the ecosystem of the INFP’s introverted feeling, they will eventually realize that they’re upsetting more and more of their emotional ‘water’ as they attempt to mix in an element that simply seems to lack a place.

INFP may realize that they’re poisoning their ecosystem and attempt to expel the foreign item—by turning to extroverted intuition.

I felt certain that I’d never recover from losing the love of my life—that the rest of my existence would be tainted with the absence of him. In a way, I resigned myself to that feeling. I spent month after month burrowing further into myself, believing that this pitiful half-existence was all I would get from here on out.

I had failed at loving. And loving was the only thing I had ever really been good at.”

When the INFP is lonely, Ne swoops in to suggest activities the INFP could partake in, in order to meet likeminded people.

When the INFP is discouraged, Ne swoops in to remind the INFP of all the different routes they could take to end up where they want to be.

When the INFP is uninspired, Ne goes out into the world and sources strange new opportuniti...

When introverted feeling and extroverted intuition work in harmony with one another, things go swimmingly. Fi absorbs, Ne expands. Fi considers, Ne delivers. The two dominant functions of the INFP work uncannily well as a team—providing the INFP with an ideal mix...

Without the deep and patient waters of introverted feeling to regulate it, Ne can spiral into a windstorm—blowing in any direction it chooses and leaving introverted feeling’s waters scattered haphazardly across new territory.

Ne—when temporarily manifesting as the INFP’s dominant function—is likely to harness a wide range of new opportunities, without consulting with Fi as to how it feels about any of them.

In moderation, Ne taking the reigns in the INFP’s mind can be perfectly healthy. Often, a windstorm of extroverted intuition is exactly what the INFP’s river of introverted feeling needs, to find itself flowing in a brand new direction.

When the INFP is facing a major upset Ne attempts to distract the INFP from their inner turmoil by blowing in a thousand different directions at once, trying desperately to forge an intriguing new path for introverted feeling to flow down.

If, however, extroverted intuition blows in too many haphazard directions for too long, Fi will only find itself overwhelmed and exhausted as it spreads itself too thin trying to keep up.

When extroverted intuition’s storm dies down, if Fi hasn’t found a new path, it becomes introverted sensing’s chance to step up and try to clean up the mess that has been made.

I wasn’t ready to face who I had become over the course of that year so I just kept running from myself.”

when Si takes control of the river, it loops it back to the places where it’s pooled in the past—choosing to relive rather than to re-frame and push the INFP forward.

When making important decisions, the INFP may look back upon similar situations they’ve encountered in the past and take note of where each of their choices led them.

introverted sensing has trouble operating alone. It provides the INFP with a narrow scope of suggestions that lack context—offering up only what has worked in the past, without considering whether or not the given suggestion applies to the present situation.

when it is not paired with Ne—which adds context and insight to Si’s observations, Si rarely leads the INFP anywhere new. Rather, it takes the river of introverted feeling and feeds it back into itself—causing the water to churn around in circles rather than find a new direction to flow in.

A part of me wondered if I’d just stay stuck where I was forever—working a job that I didn’t really care for and missing my ex like hell.”

They will eventually come to understand that they are not stifling their creativity by guiding and structuring it—they are optimizing it.

Extroverted thinking operates as a powerful catalyst for change when the INFP uses it in the order it’s meant to be used in—that is, following the formulation of their ideals (Fi), the exploration of how to express those ideals (Ne) and the feedback as to which of the available routes best suits the INFP’s interests (Si). It is then Te’s natural place to step in and implement the plans that will make those ideals a reality.

Healthy extroverted thinking observes the flow of introverted feeling’s river and pointedly determines where dams ought to be built to maximize creativity. But when the river grows polluted and stagnates after, Te panics. It begins to build dams around all of the water it sees—wanting desperately to protect what’s left of its unhealthy introverted feeling.

When Introverted Sensing takes over, the INFP’s functions work in reverse order—Te dictates Fi, rather than the other way around, and Si feeds into Ne. Their reversed function stacking makes them resemble their dichotomous four-letter opposite, the ESTJ. However, the INFP’s under-exercised Te does not function with the precision and capability that the ESTJ’s dominant Te does—they will therefore behave as an unhealthy or imbalanced ESTJ.

The INFP in the grip of their inferior function becomes a harsh critic of the world around them. Accidentally rebelling against their idealistic nature, this type sees only the incompetence and disorder in the world around them. The normally generous and flexible INFP becomes rigid, judgmental and argumentative. They are quick to perceive others’ flaws and may become uncharacteristically harsh judges of character

ESTJ’s extroverted thinking is genuinely seeking to instill order, the gripping INFP’s extroverted thinking is seeking only to protect his or her ego. The INFP is, in a sense, rejecting him or herself before others have the chance to do so. If the INFP criticizes their own work and deems themselves a failure, they don’t have to bear the harsh sting of rejection that may come from putting their work out there and having it criticized by others. If the INFP deems themselves incapable of making big decisions, it saves them from making the wrong one and having to deal with the consequences. If the INFP predicts every pitfall and criticism that might come their way before they actually encounter it, they don’t have to worry about being caught off-guard by any sort of emotional pain. And so the INFP becomes his or her own worst enemy, before anybody else gets the chance to.

If introverted feeling is a river, a Te grip is the equivalent of the INFP building dams around every edge of the river, until the water becomes entirely trapped inside. Nothing can enter that will further pollute the river, but the water also ceases to flow. It ceases to integrate. Introverted feeling lies polluted and dormant inside of Te’s walls, where it is safe but also wholly ineffective. To outsiders, the INFP may seem to have lost the very essence of who they are, as their compassionate and creative personalities have been replaced with a strict, almost militant version of themselves.

tragic <=(

I had never experienced such an intense creative block with my writing. It was as though my mind was rejecting everything I could invent before I even sat down to write it. Everything I thought of immediately seemed too cliché or trite to make it to publication. I felt immensely frustrated by my own lack of creativity. For many months, I wrote nothing at all.

It was as though I was constantly staring into a mirror that showed only my biggest insecurities. And I didn’t want to give anyone the chance to prove me right about myself. To be honest, I’m not sure I could’ve handled a rejection at that point in my life.