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Why is it so flippin hard to know your type? Need Advice from wise / experienced ones

2K views 10 replies 9 participants last post by  Elwinz 
#1 ·
All right so I have another account in which I forgot my password, but let me say MBTI and cognitive functions is way too complicated than I thought it was. When this youtuber said "You can't self type" I was like BS and self typed myself, after maybe a good 20 hours of research, as an ENFP. But man, I was not an Ne dom, when I read about ENFP's I read about their random brains and random associations and all that, but why was I so sure about ENFP?

I was heavily biased, and realized I had no trace of Ne, because everyone says Ne is like hyperactive mind with hella associations and stuff but I realized thats who I wanted to be, but I was not. I have done countless questionaires, and maybe got 1 or 2 answers, but thats not enough to base my type off of. I think my questionaires are valid, but not many people, sometimes 0, will ever go into my questionaires.

So, my question is, I want to know what my MBTI type is. It will benefit me in so many areas, and also provide me a community on PC that is similar to me. How did you find yours?

By the process of elimination, I can say I am for sure not a Ti, Te, and Si dom.
 
#2 · (Edited)
Usually when people mistype it's because they pick and choose too much non-sense as opposed to looking at their long-term thought process. It's like ''Hey, at my job, I'm good with coming up with ideas, so I must be Intuitive.'' Or ''I'm comfortable around other people, so I must be extroverted'' and the list goes on.

Finding your true type means reading up on functions, being honest with yourself and identifying the ones you really seem to operate on a daily basis as opposed to ''Well when I'm with my family in law, I'm quite a jokester and I love to ruffle people with provocative humor, so I must be NTP'' because that's just an isolated sample of your life.

Think about how you deal with ANY new information that hits you. What is usually your go to thought process for minor things things such as job routine and bigger things such as politics, religion and philosophy. Usually you can spot a pattern. For instance, I know I'm all about ''Prove it, show it to me then I might embrace it (with time)'' which is very Si/Te. An Ni/Te would be more like ''I just KNOW it though I can't explain it, but I also need to see that it works otherwise I'm wrong and need to start over''.

Another common mistake is that people always look for the positive side of each type and cognitive function. They identify with it, then run with it and yet can't use many concrete examples to state their case. Usually just reference mindless stereotypes. Focusing instead on the negative aspects of different types and functions may sound depressing but usually yields to much more clear results. Why? Because highlighting your weaknesses requires you to be honest and humble with yourself, ergo more accurate. For instance, you think you are Ni Dom, because the internet told you how awesome INxJs are? Fair enough, you could be. Now instead of touting about how mysterious and prescient you are, ask yourself whether you seem to be stuck inside your own head way too much for your own good and absolutely suck at adapting to the world around you. Like do you have great insights but find that they actually more or less work in the real world and in real time, therefore making you look like a bit of a crackpot? You don't know how to dress sharply, you struggle to keep up with immediate conversations, you cower in fear at possible sexual experiences because that makes you vulnerable, you have a hard time finding an experience where you had raw, pure fun? Ni doesn't sound so romanticized now, does it? Well, a real INxJ upon reading this would groan in frustration and probably say ''Damn brother, you got my number all right!''. Whereas someone who wants to be INxJ would insist that these types are flawless and are organically great athletes and karate champions.

I immediately cringed at the prospect of Inferior Ne. I'm creative, sharp and witty, dammit! But do I have mow things over and over again before I make a decision? Do I get terrified the second I'm forced outside my comfort zone? Yes and yes. It's painful to admit that to myself but it's true. However that also means I'm quite clear and positive about my type so I can accurately analyze myself and actively work on my short-comings. All it took was for me to ask myself ''What do you suck at in life?''.
 
#3 ·
Hmm well I guess where I can start is telling you my problems. I cannot really recollect or pinpoint a problem that persists or anything, but I will just tell you what troubles me as a high schooler.

I hate the sheer amount of homework we get, 7 periods a day is way to stimulating, and I procrastinate so much at home and binge shows, youtube, and askreddit. If I have extra time, I tell myself "I will take me well needed break now, and work tomorow" like I know I am repeating a mistake I did in the past, but I have a confidence that I will get it done. But I dont, and its the exact same thing over and over again.
Because I am always stressed about homework, I cant enjoy life- I want to watch shows and learn from them about how to make friends and just expose myself to the possibilites a youngster like me can have in the world, and workout and diet and explore hobbies for enjoyment, but I have no time to do these, and do not feel like I deserve to do these, unless I do my hw.

I have always felt like I was picked out, and given inferiorities. Dont get me wrong, I am not bad looking, but more like I am the leader of the underdogs. I barely miss the cut for the "cool kids" if you know what I mean. I have 2 best friends- both gifted in looks, smarts...well the are rare specimens. I never once felt happy for them, just jealous. I am insecure of all the attention they get, and how even if I work hard I will never reach what they were born with. This created social anxiety that built up over time, feeling inferior and feeling like I needed to prove my superiority or something.

I am too lazy to be organized, desire control over my life while also seeing it as tedious and boring.

I give up at the face of hardship. Like if I had an assignment due in 30 minutes and could finish if I pushed really hard, I dont. Others would push through and concentrete and feel victorious after, I jus accept defeat. Even with depressive episodes or something bad happening in my life, I cant fight back, but instead need time to wallow in my feelings.

Also, one thing I realized, I suck at aurguments. I cannot think clearly, and when someone says something sometimes I have a flash in my mind that I know will f*** their aurgument up, but forget mid sentence because I am constantly taking in input, processing it, thinking abut what I will say, and its too much for me. Often after the arugment is when I have the perfect counter reply in my head when I go over (video replays) of what they said.

I care too much about what people think of me. Even before social anxiety, I was really aware of people and where their attention was and loved to show off and stuff.
 
#5 ·
The main reason it's so hard is that there's not a lot of hard data on what makes a type. There's a few things that are set in stone about every type, but these things often aren't usable in everyday situations. Therefore we're forced to find some practical implementations of type, that are present in about 80% of people with that type. There are lists of traits that are more common in some types than in others. This can help in finding your type, but you're almost assured that you will hit some of the marks and miss on others. It's also often unclear which traits actually belong to a type and which don't. Are INJs always perfectionists or not? It's completely up in the air.

Then there's the simple fact that it's almost impossible to look at yourself objectively. We always have a filter between what we think and what we want to think. Often this difference isn't even concious. We also see our own traits in a different light than other's traits, meaning that someone who thinks they're not organized, could actually be a pure control freak who just doesn't really feel like they're performing the way they want to.
We're always mirroring ourselves to others, while having a flawed view of both ourselves and the other person.

So we have poorly defined types and a bad view of who we actually are. That makes it really hard to actually get to what type you are.
 
#9 ·
Time and critical examination is the best way for someone to know their type. I was mistyped as INTP for over a year, and something about it didn't feel right. I kept constantly questioning my type, but when I realized I was ENTP it felt right and I didn't question my type as much. Now I'm fairly sure I'm ENTP. I think that after awhile identifying as the correct type, you will know it is your type.
 
#11 · (Edited)
Yeah, quite certain some people follow grant stack, but some are IIEE EEII.
Another thing is mixing up enneagram behaviours with cognitive functions. Those are 2 separate things. They are somewhat related, since there are common enneagram for specific MBTI types, but can't quite depend on that. For example people describing ISTJs often describe enneagram 1. ISTJs which aren't 1 will have hard times relating to it. Outside that knowing how ISTJ process things, they aren't very likely to mistype, XSFPs males seems to have the hardest time with it and their cognitive stack play a big role in that.
 
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