Myer Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgements sounder, and your life closer to your heart desire.

        

~Isabel Briggs Myers.~

I first encountered MBTI during my study at the United States Naval Academy. All of us took the MBTI test and as it turned out, I happened to be an “Introvert”. The other type is “Extrovert”, and both are further expanded into 16 combinations representing four bipolar psychological types/personality types, namely Introversion/Extroversion, Intuition/Sensing, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving.

At this stage I think it’s suffice to say that I’m an Introvert without divulging my other personality types. Here’s some excerpt of my personality traits based on my MBTI:

~They have everything arranged in order and a systematic manner in the outer worlds; they give great importance to such thoughts. They put in a lot of their energy into recognizing the most effective system for getting their job done accurately. They believe in defining and redefining their priorities in life continuously. They understand things intuitively, which is a trait and they do it without even pinpointing why and also without any detailed knowledge of the cause or the subject. They are often right, and they actually know that. As a result, they also tend to put an incredible amount of faith on their intuitions and instincts. Their attributes include:

~They are affirming and warm by nature.
~They are extremely dedicated to achieving ultimate relationships.
~They are extremely sensitive and concerned about others feelings.
~They have exceptional communication skills and written skills as well.
~They are committed and prefer to have lifelong relationships.
~They have high expectations for others as well as themselves.
~They are good listeners.

That’s Me...that’s me...that’s me....except for the communication skills which I’m still working hard to improve. How do you overcome the initial stage fright......anybody?

This is not daily horoscope for those of you who are wondering what the heck I’m going on about. The MBTI is a tool of understanding ourselves, as well as understanding others (if you know their MBTI). However, you don’t always have to know people’s specific MBTI categories. For a start you can generally recognised if a person is Introvert or Extrovert. I personally find that being an Introvert has helped me to better recognise other Introverts. While I think I’ve done a fairly decent job at comprehending my own strengths and limitations while looking for ways to realise my true potentials, it saddens me to see how some comrade Introverts struggle to fit in. They may be perceived as ‘quite’, ‘not willing to speak up’, ‘dormant’, ‘ineffective’ and many other negative connotations just because of their born-with nature of being Introvert.

I have come up with a few reminders that work for me as an Introvert, and I’d like to share some of them here:

~If you have nothing better to say, then say nothing. But if you have something to say, make sure people listen.
(This particular reminder is probably one of the most effective personal tools for me).

~I start with trusting people, but it’s difficult to regain my trust once they’ve lost it.

~I’ve learned that I’m comfortable when I’m prepared so I do give a lot of attention to the preparation stage.......to the dislike of some of my staff obviously. That comes with being a superior officer I guess....hah...hah...Btw, doing plenty of preparation has also helped me to ‘manage’ my stage fright better nowadays.

~When I give to charity, I believe that I must be sincere, if not just don’t bother. I fully believe that my contribution will be put to good use. It’s easy to give; just be sincere and fully believe.....the onus is on the recipient to make sure they really fulfil what they promise to do with the contribution.

For those of you who have never heard of MBTI, just Google it and you’ll find plenty of reading materials on this subject. You can even take the test yourself (you’ll find some free tests out there) and find out your own MBTI combination.

This maybe a dry subject to some, but to me, it’s a life changing revelation even though I only began to fully appreciate it many years after I first took the test. Here’s a simple photographic representation of MBTI I found on the internet......enjoy.

(Click on the charts for enlarged view)