21 signs you’re an INFJ personality type {told in pictures}
As the rarest of the 16 Myers-Briggs personality types, an INFJ will often feel different from other people and misunderstood. Their rich personalities have many layers, and sometimes even they themselves struggle to figure out who they are. Yet as INFJs understand themselves better, they become more equipped to do what they do best, which is to share their well-refined insights and help others move toward their true potential. (Not sure what your personality type is? Take this free, quick test from our partners at Personality Hacker.)
Enter INFJ Refuge, the largest public Facebook community for INFJs. The Facebook page content is created by an international team of seven administrators, including founder Rohit Barman, who until now has remained anonymous.
Rohit, who is 33 years old and originally from New York, now lives in Calcutta, India, so he can care for his INFJ mom who has Alzheimer’s disease. Rohit, along with the other page “hosts,” have day jobs, but they volunteer each week to post images and words of wisdom, as well as respond to followers’ comments and questions.
The purpose of the page, Rohit tells I, D, is to bring together INFJs from all across the globe, “so we, as INFJs, with all our cognitive complexities, are understood, respected and appreciated by our families, friends, lovers, colleagues, communities and last, but not least, ourselves.”
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How do you know if you’re an INFJ personality type? Here are 21 signs, explained using INFJ Refuge images:
1. You’ve been told you’re an ‘old soul.’
2. You have the incredible ability of knowing what makes others tick, but you rarely feel understood yourself.
3. Learning about being an INFJ was like finally reading your owner’s manual.
4. You have high standards for yourself and those close to you.
5. You never stop growing and trying to improve yourself, and you like helping others do the same.
6. You’re tuned in to the people around you.
7. You have the uncanny ability to perceive people’s motives and feelings, even when they don’t directly express them.
8. You can usually tell when someone is lying or being fake.
9. You feel things deeply, but you don’t always show it. To your own harm, you internalize your emotions.
10. You’re so sensitive to other people’s feelings that you sometimes experience them as your own.
11. You’re a paradoxical blend of ‘dreamer’ and ‘doer.’ But sometimes you put things off because you don’t feel prepared.
12. You intuitively notice patterns in other people’s behavior. You hear the things that aren’t said, and you wisely trust actions over words.
13. You’re incredibly patient, but when people go against your deeply-held principles, you may suddenly cut them out of your life.
14. As a sensitive introvert, sometimes life seems like too much.
15. Sometimes you just need to retreat into solitude for a while.
16. You’re always trying to balance your need for independence and alone time with your equally strong need to connect deeply with others.
17. Sometimes you feel so different from other people that you swear you came from another planet.
18. You’re intense or nothing at all.
19. You care deeply about the state of humanity and causes that are important to you.
20. Superficial pleasantries and small talk don’t do it for you. You connect with others soul-to-soul.
21. You live for the personal, the intimate and the authentic.
A huge thank you to the team at INFJ Refuge for helping make this post possible, by sharing their images and giving their time and hearts to the INFJ community: Shan Narain Jain (New Delhi, India); Nafila S. (Bangladesh); Susan Sontra (Elk Grove, California); Eric Nijholt (Culemborg, Netherlands); Eleni Lamprianidou (Bristol, United Kingdom); James Brandon (Toledo, Ohio); and Rohit Barman.
Image credit: Rona Keller
