How INFPs Make Decisions, INFP Career Choices & “Selling” as an INFP!

I know that our extended lockdowns have brought out many INFPs’ challenges with decision-making. I also know that some INFPs are using this time to go inwards and reflect. In this post, I talk about both the struggle some of us are facing & will also share an interesting INFP-related post I came across recently.    

How INFPs Make Decisions.

Recently, I had feelings of “not being enough” come up for me again as relates to how effective I am as a decision-maker. Apart from the negative “voice-in-our-heads” that so many of us have, which was definitely part of it for me, when I thought about it, I realized there was more to it than just that.

A few weeks back, when we went under lockdown here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was feeling quite anxious because of the whole Coronavirus situation. And I was feeling decision-paralysis coming on and doubting the decisions I was making.

Should we stock up on more than we had? Were we doing the right things to keep safe? It all felt really overwhelming.

I found that all this worrying was making me really indecisive, which felt a little alarming. I have definitely become a lot better at deciding as I have grown older and this felt like a regression. Of course, my heightened anxiety was part of it. But this nudged me to start thinking and reading different books and blogs about INFPs.

This led me to an interesting line of thinking. When it comes to decision-making, I have often compared myself to ENTJs. But types like ENTJs and ESTJs, the “J” types approach the world very differently from types like INFPs and INTPs.

This difference between a “Judger” and “Perceiver” type in MBTI is not about how we commonly use those words in common language. It’s not about people being judgmental or perceptive.

Judger and Perceiver types are different in how they approach the world. An extreme judger will want to make a decision. An extreme perceiver will want to keep on taking in new information, and so, will not be able to reach a “final” conclusion.

When I thought about this, I realized how some of my insecurities about not being “decisive” come from not valuing my own approach to the world. Yes, types like the INFPs and INTPs can have problems with not choosing anything. We can get paralyzed between two different options.

There was a time in my life when I hated to close any options. I had to learn that it’s good to close some doors. It’s good to throw my hat over the fence as an INFP. For example, because I am multipassionate, when I was younger, for many years, I couldn’t decide amongst my many creative loves.

It was only when I chose to throw my hat over the fence and commit to writing as my BIG creative commitment that things started moving for me.

So, yes, it’s very important for INFPs to decide something and learn to be more decisive around some big areas of our lives.

BUT when we compare ourselves to J types and find ourselves “not enough” and “not good enough” at making decisions, we are overvaluing their style. It’s not always good to just decide something based on what you know and then stick to that.

In the past few years, I have seen how some ENTJs and ESTJs don’t think enough and make bad decisions quickly that then have cascading effects. They often not just affect their own lives but the lives of people around them.

So, while there is value in quick decision-making, there are some real pitfalls as well.

These are the kinds of pitfalls that having a more flexible way of approaching the world helps you avoid as an INFP. As an INFP, you are open to new information. You don’t lock in a rigid decision prematurely. This makes you more adaptable.

These are all good things.

Taking Action Does Not Close the Loop for INFPs.

The other piece of “not feeling enough” while making decisions as an INFP has to do with the fact that P types are not happy with the small amount of information that J types need to ACT. We are “seekers” and there’s always more information to get.

So, it’s harder for us to be motivated by the rewards of action. When we act, we don’t feel a loop close like the J types. We see more possibilities, more questions. We never have that feeling of surety that J types often have.

So, we need to learn to take action knowing that making a decision and taking an action will not give us a sure-shot answer or close some loop. Instead, we need to become comfortable with taking action because it helps us discover, not because we are going to come to a final conclusion.

So, our doubting our enoughness as decision-makers has to do with the fact that we can’t ever be like the J types we are often comparing ourselves with. We will always have our doubts.

As INFPs, we can confuse decision-making with being opinionated or having a specific position that types like ENTJs and ESTJs often display.

But INFPs and INTPs are the types who are looking for answers to big questions. “Who am I?” “What’s the big truth behind the universe?” These are big questions that don’t have easy answers. We keep searching for answers for all of our lives.

And that is how it should be. We get closer and closer but there’s always more to learn.

That’s the fun of the process. That’s the mystery. That’s the discovery.

So, if we are an INFP, we need to forget about “looking decisive” in some stereotypical way and start learning to take actions and push buttons simply to discover and let one step after the other unfold in front of us.

You can make good decisions as an INFP.

Like everyone else, like every personality type, your decision-making style has its pros and cons. That’s okay. It’s not about “not being enough.” It’s about having different criteria and following a different style than the majority.

Connecting these different dots and thinking about “enoughness” in how I decide in these anxiety-provoking times is definitely one of the things that I have been learning recently.

How to “Sell” Your Work as an INFP and Making Career Choices.

Another thing I have heard people talking about is using this time in quarantine to self-reflect.

I am hardly an expert on INFP career choices. I also think that all INFPs are different. But I do think there’s a lot of similarity amongst us. Whatever our unique values, we really care about them, whether it’s animal rights or how women have full right over their own bodies, or something else.

We value authenticity and being ourselves.

And while we are generally laidback, when a value of ours is violated, we can become very passionate. That can take people around us by surprise. They often can see only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our feelings. Our deep values are submerged in the ocean of our inner experience.

Also, if you are like most INFPs I know, you probably hate the idea of “selling,” which feels like trying to cheat people into buying things they don’t truly need or want.

So, it was interesting for me to come across this article by Evan Cruz in which he talks about good careers for INFPs and why INFPs should learn how to sell regardless of what they might think of it.

Evan does say that trying to be something like a Sales Manager is most probably not a good choice for INFPs. The point he makes though is that all INFPs, no matter our profession, need to get good at selling and closing.

As a writer, I have had my challenges with this.

I did a talk a while back for The Empath’s Journey in which I got applause as well as great feedback afterward. BUT I really did not emphasize the merits of the book or try to sell it. It felt too much like pushing. As a result, I didn’t end up selling as many books as I had hoped. This was even though people told me they loved my talk.

Afterward, I felt disappointed with myself. I felt like I had let myself down.

It was only after a few weeks had passed that I realized that I had not only let myself down but also let those people down who had attended my talk. I had talked in depth about empaths and highly sensitive people but I had not made a good enough case for how my book would help them.

But the thing is, if I had talked more articulately about my book, the people attending would have known who the book was for and who it wasn’t for. I would have sold to the people who would have benefited from the book –people who wanted to learn about how to tune into their own inner voice, who were sensitive creatives and who wanted a deeper understanding of empathy so they could clear out codependent patterns and understand what empathy was not.

On the other hand, The Empath’s Journey doesn’t focus on narcissists, so, let’s say, someone was looking for that specifically, they would still have been free to make the right choice for them.

I think I didn’t do a good enough job selling and closing to the people who would have benefited from the book. I had this old paradigm stuck in my head that said that if I “won,” someone else might “lose.”

But books aren’t like that. With the books we choose to buy, there’s a clear exchange of value. And the benefits come BOTH to the reader and the writer. It’s a Win-Win, not a “I win and You lose” kind of thing.

And so is the case with lots of other professions.

Our ideas of selling are so contorted that we often don’t realize that selling is something we all need to learn to do effectively. If you are an energy worker or a really amazing book cover designer, if you do a great job of selling to me, it not only benefits you, it also benefits me, the person who needs and uses these services.

So, I think Evan is on to something here.

As INFPs, we all do need to learn to sell effectively. You can check out the article here. It talks about potential careers that might be a good fit for INFPs as well as careers to avoid. So, if you are looking at a change, this might be a good list to look at. Evan also links out to an interesting career test, which you might find helpful. I really liked that he shared his own results honestly and authentically.

So, these are a few of the things that I wanted to share about INFPs right now. I hope that you find your own insights about living life as an INFP as we go through this change around the world.

Take care and trust that you can figure out the next step!