ENFJ/ambivert social burnout?

[Moon]

So ENFJ has been a consistent answer for my personality type over the last few years, although as a teen I was an INFP (before my self actualization journey ridding me of childhood trauma issues etc)

Anyway, I am apparently 60% extraverted, 40% introverted according to MBTI, which I was happy with...until my current burnout (never felt like this before)

Recently, I decided to help my mum with some English practice regularly everyday and the same with my little brother with schoolwork, on top of that I have started socializing more with my family in general and playing sports with my siblings...before this, I would have spent a lot of time in my room though- and often feeling lonely (but not so much in the NEEDING people way? maybe? idk) 

So, at first I was so happy to be helping my family out and spending so much time with them, I felt amazing! But today, after a week or so, it hit me and I feel like shit and burnt out, and I told my mum I couldn't help her because my brain isn't working properly and I couldn't stand to listen to her speak today- very strange  I would still say more than half of my waking hours were spent on my own though

Has anyone felt like this before? Even if you're not an introvert? Is it something that is probably down to me being more introverted than I believed or is it that I made a sudden change in my lifestyle?

It has also made me question this personality thing and whether i should really be thinking about going into those ENFJ type careers in case this happens to me in the future (I never appreciated the idea of MTBI till recently when I became interested in a career like mediation or politics etc- which also happened to be what ENFJs may be good at, even though I'm studying engineering rn- a separate issue lol)

Edit: I've not been on the forum for a short while but recently given MTBI more of a chance and see the forum is full of this shit too hahaha

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Moon

[Akemrelax]

@Moon Hey, if you’re interested in MBTI you should check out the original texts of Yung and Myers-Briggs. Psychological Types by Carl Jung and Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers. They are available on https://archive.org/ for free. I find there’s a lot of confusion and different interpretations online, so it’s best to read the original texts. 

Maybe pop an audiobook of the text on youtube as you read along the ebook on your phone or something. 

TBH I find contemplating using a journal is the best way to know yourself. Especially if you don’t have time. Think about what shaped your personality in the past, how you behaved in the past and present, likes/dislikes, who were you in HS, etc. Remember, you are the closest thing to yourself.

[Moon]

@Akemrelax thanks! I will defo have a look into the theories deeper and good tips 

after spending more time thinking about it today...I think I was being delusional whilst answering the questions and an INFJ-A fits me much better (one of its weaknesses was also easily burning out lol) but yeah I don't really know my true self, I think I was projecting who I wanted to be 

like the stuff the site says about INFJs are kinda scarily accurate for me, and the idea of them being thought of as "quiet extraverted personality types" due to the ability to make connections with others (despite being intraverted) really makes sense to me

 

[Akemrelax]

@Moon There's also a playlist of Jordan Peterson lectures on personality that's quite good. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKpqpBRVr8Y&list=PL22J3VaeABQAhrMCQUa6sde_Y9DVbLYRv

Unfortunately I don't fit into any of their types. When you do these personality tests like 16P just beware of the Barnum Effect . 

Personally, I find personality and communication to be like sports. You can't learn about it by reading a book, there are too many factors like culture, values, emotions, biology, age, generation, consciousness, trauma, language, etc. It takes a lot of practice and experience. I lean more towards implicit understanding here.

[Himanshu]

That can be a difficult one because ENFJ and INFJ have the same functions (even the same Fe-Ti and Ni-Se axes) but in different orders.

ENFJ is (Fe > Ni > Se > Ti)
INFJ is (Ni > Fe > Ti > Se) 

If you want to clear it up, you can ask yourself these questions:

• What is the source of your everyday conflicts? Where do you feel stuck? What seem like the most difficult decisions to make?
  • Are those between you / others? Like choosing between what would make everyone happy and what makes sense to you? OR
  • Are those between your own insights and what you see/hear?
• What comes easier for you?
  • Dealing with minute sensory details? Like looking for a key in a drawer full of keys OR 
  • Checking the consistency of someone's arguments? Researching to find loopholes in someone's arguments and correcting them?
• If you had a significant other to provide you one of the following skillsets to add to your own, which do you think would be most useful:
  1. Somebody who reminded you to eat, drink liquids, etc.
  2. Somebody who provided you with a lot of creative ideas
  3. Somebody who took things that you came up with and execute them in reality
  4. Somebody who helps you in understand how to get from point A to point B 

Another thing to understand is that if you are growing, these functions are developed sequentially over your lifetime. So, if you are a 25-year-old ENFJ, maybe you are just discovering and developing your Introverted Intuition (Ni) - and that's where your current phase of introversion might be coming from. 

[electroBeam]

10 hours ago, Moon said:

So ENFJ has been a consistent answer for my personality type over the last few years, although as a teen I was an INFP (before my self actualization journey ridding me of childhood trauma issues etc)

Anyway, I am apparently 60% extraverted, 40% introverted according to MBTI, which I was happy with...until my current burnout (never felt like this before)

Recently, I decided to help my mum with some English practice regularly everyday and the same with my little brother with schoolwork, on top of that I have started socializing more with my family in general and playing sports with my siblings...before this, I would have spent a lot of time in my room though- and often feeling lonely (but not so much in the NEEDING people way? maybe? idk) 

So, at first I was so happy to be helping my family out and spending so much time with them, I felt amazing! But today, after a week or so, it hit me and I feel like shit and burnt out, and I told my mum I couldn't help her because my brain isn't working properly and I couldn't stand to listen to her speak today- very strange  I would still say more than half of my waking hours were spent on my own though

Has anyone felt like this before? Even if you're not an introvert? Is it something that is probably down to me being more introverted than I believed or is it that I made a sudden change in my lifestyle?

It has also made me question this personality thing and whether i should really be thinking about going into those ENFJ type careers in case this happens to me in the future (I never appreciated the idea of MTBI till recently when I became interested in a career like mediation or politics etc- which also happened to be what ENFJs may be good at, even though I'm studying engineering rn- a separate issue lol)

Edit: I've not been on the forum for a short while but recently given MTBI more of a chance and see the forum is full of this shit too hahaha

 

 

 

I personally think that you need to take the MBTI with a grain of salt. The way to know your personality is to contemplate, meditate on who you are. MBTI comes after you know who you are to a certain extent, its like the icing on the cake, but its not the base of the cake.

MBTI can further clarify and solidify what you've already discovered through contemplation, yet its a terrible tool (as with all models) to use if you haven't done any contemplation or meditation on who you are. If you don't feel like you're 80% sure of who you are, I wouldn't touch MBTI. You'll get different answers, you wont resonate with what it says, etc. 

As with burnout... burnout happens no matter who you are and what personality you have. I'm a mix between INTP and INFP, and have burnt out a dozen times in the last 3 years because I went too hard into engineering. When you're burnt out it starts to feel like the thing that got you burnt out isnt truly for you, and that it was a mistake. Yet as you take a break from that thing, you rejuvenate and start feeling like that thing was for you after all. I'm an INTP yet managed to burn out over engineering. As an ENFJ its totally possible to burn out over socialising too much... if you went hard core and did it too much. Instead of getting hasty, I would try to have a break and see where you are in a month. Burnout is a sign you're doing something too much and need to take breaks... regardless of whether you're an ENFJ, INFJ, etc. 

[Moon]

@Akemrelax yeah very good points, ah I guess you probably are best described by a couple of them?
not to blow my own horn but my strengths are both of the INFJ and INTP (after a decent amount of personal development work) but yeah I'm finding this 16P quite limiting

@Himanshu Ooh yeah was wondering what people meant by those letters, so it's good you brought up the judging axes stuff. Well I come from an introverted childhood so I'd be finding my extroverted side if that's who I am

@electroBeam Thanks. Yeah so I thought I had some idea of who I was with regards to my past shaping me to do certain things etc, but I guess I've just been doing personal development on myself without *truly* knowing who I am 

I think I will begin contemplating myself about my "true" nature before I consider these other theories then and try to be aware of my own biases and motives too 

Yeah good point about burnout... I've had studying burnout before but because socializing felt fun- I didn't even think about needing "breaks"/time for myself until the evenings, that was probably one of my mistakes 

 

 

 

[Akemrelax]

On 6/23/2020 at 6:22 AM, Moon said:

@Akemrelax yeah very good points, ah I guess you probably are best described by a couple of them?
not to blow my own horn but my strengths are both of the INFJ and INTP (after a decent amount of personal development work) but yeah I'm finding this 16P quite limiting

I am starting to resonate more and more with INTP now that I know more about the model. I am introverted (I), imaginative (N), hard time deciding what to do so (T), and overall more focused on perceiving info than judging it so (P), but it's kinda confusing. Watch me change it after more research. Edit: oh wait, if I'm more focused on perceiving than it should (J) because the last letter is suppose to tell you the placement of the functions, so I should be INTJ. I'm going to leave this here so you can see how confusing this is . Edit, edit: no, I'm INTP . I think I have similarities with INFP because I find my experience of reality can't be expressed in words fully and I realize the limitations of logic and thought, but that's only because I'm into spirituality. This model does not account for spirituality, so minus that, I am an INTP. I got 51% on N/S and T/F, so yes.

The thing that confused me the most, and I would want others to know about, is that the terms in the model are different from how we use them in real life. So, (F)eeling is not being in touch with emotions, it means having a sense of right/wrong. (S)ensing (aka Observing) is not being in touch with the present moment in a meditative sense, but being present in an "objective", literal sense (objective labeling). So someone who looks at a TV and says "oh it's a TV" and moves on rather than thinking of a TV has a metaphor. There are others too like P and J, the model's quite complex.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Akemrelax
Correction