The Ever-Changing Type

January 2013 ENFP (Sydney, NSW, Australia) 

June 2013 ENFJ (Batu, Malang, Jawa Timur, Indonesia)

February 2014 ENTJ (Cikedung, Indramayu, Jawa Barat, Indonesia)

November 2014 INFJ (Cikedung, Indramayu, Jawa Barat, Indonesia)

Since freshman year of high school, I've had an affinity for leadership development, character development, personality assessments and the like. Mostly because I’m genuinely curious and fascinated about gaining more insight into myself and learning how to become a better me. 

When in Australia, I was very happy with where I was working, where I was headed and probably feeling very much myself. In early 2013 when my time at Opportunity International Australia was ending, the Donor Relations team was going through MBTI Training.When we did the personal assessment, I discovered that my natural default style is ISTJ but my MBTI Test resulted in ENFP. If you know much about MBTI, then you know that ISTJ and ENFP are complete opposites. The types are derived from 4 preferences:

 Introvert (I) vs. Extrovert (E)

Sensing (S) vs. iNtuition (N)

Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)

Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

Your default MBTI style is very important to know because during times of high stress we will default to our natural stage, without realizing it. If we aren't under stress then we are able to think about our actions more clearly. Your default style is how you were born, your innate style as a child, etc. and the style you test as now as an adult is an indicator of how much you have grown and developed personally. 

In January 2013, I had a huge revelation. I am an introvert. I am more logically inclined but I have spent most of my life trying to convince myself that I was energetic and outgoing. The truth is growing up, I was very shy and for the exception of close family friends I wasn't very open. I was bossy as a kid and I collected things and organized everything which is very characteristic of ISTJ. I couldn't read people’s feelings or catch social cues, I was very fact based. I liked math because there was an answer and I didn't understand things like grammar and the difference between apostrophes, commas, and periods or anything seemingly abstract. I was always by the rules and traditions were important to me, I was always the tattle tale because I couldn't deal with people who broke the rules. If I’m following the rules then they should too. This was me at age 5. This was still me for most of my time in elementary school. 

My parents are community leaders which naturally pushed me into de facto leadership roles or forced me to be in the spotlight when I didn't want to be. As I was growing up, constantly having to fill this role eventually made me more outgoing, made me better at being sympathetic and more self-aware. I don’t know how but over the course of my life, I was never associated with being shy anymore. I was over-hyper, over-energetic, very outgoing and a go-getter. It wasn't until 2013, that I realized how much I had personally developed because of the dramatic difference in my upbringing I had molded into a completely new individual. I had become an ENFP. An ENFP is described as someone who loves ideas and people is extremely sympathetic and caring, social and outgoing.They are always enthusiastic and they tend to be creative and sometimes silly. I have a servant’s heart; I used to do 300 hours of community service in one given school year simply because I wanted to and felt so strongly about each cause. I would wait in hospital lobbies, run around the lunchroom and I would sell “shoes” for JDRF, I would visit the nursing home every week, spend every Saturday as Volunteer at the Children’s Museum, I altar served at mass, I went on midnight runs and breakfast runs to feed the homeless in NYC. I loved community service and it built so much character in me. I was able to become an ENFP because I had the foundation needed for my ISTJ default. I had organization, system and rules in place. 

In April 2013, I moved to Indonesia to start Peace Corps. After 2 months in Indonesia, one of our assignments was to plan a teacher training. I decided to do my session on MBTI, so I took the test again for kicks and in June 2013 I tested as ENFJ. ENFJ isn't too far off from ENFP but ENFJ’s are more persuasive, strong believers, decisive, global learners, they see the big picture and often put others’ needs before their own. Putting others’ needs before my own came at a pretty young age. My youngest brother and I are ten years apart; he was my life until I left for college. If I had clubs after school, I would pick him up and he would be right there with me.














After June 2013, we officially moved to our villages and after having lived in Indonesia for about 10 months, in February 2014, I was invited to do a teacher training and naturally, I did MBTI with them. When I took the test in February 2014, I tested as ENTJ. I guess Peace Corps was stressful, because I had regressed to half of my default. Since living in Indonesia, all the micro-stressors would change me without my realizing immediately. The ISTJ that had been in hiding for so long started coming out of the woodwork. I didn't have enough structure in my job assignment and I lived in an area where no one follows the rules, punctuality is not really a concept and everyone is relaxed and not in rush. My normally indecisive self became very decisive. My usual go-with-the-flow was now creating excel sheets and program reports simply to keep myself sane. I created an hourly, daily, monthly and yearly calendar. I was trying to control everything because it seemed like nothing was in control. ENTJ’s on reflex are usually argumentative, they speak as if they are a professional on the matter, they need no motivation to make a plan, they don’t have much affinity for feelings. My best friend, Stephanie, noted that Peace Corps has made me very defensive. I’m constantly being told I’m not American, assumptions are always being made about me and for every time someone tries to wrong me in some way I’m prepared with a lecture of my own. I was shopping with two of my friends and the second someone tried to overcharge I would immediately go into a lecture about how much volunteers make and why it’s wrong to assume just because we are foreigners we have money. At this point in my service it just comes second nature to me and I do it without even knowing that I’m doing it until someone calls me out on it. 

I took the test again this November, and this time I tested as INFJ. INFJ’s are idealists, they are dreamers but they are also doers. They are often concerned with humanity at large and genuinely interested in people, because of this they are usually mistaken as extroverts. INFJs only let a few people in and once in awhile they will shut down because they need time to recharge and because they are givers, it’s emotionally exhausting for them. I definitely think it’s interesting though that at the points in my life where I had so many circles of close friends I was able to classify myself as an ENFP because I naturally felt at home wherever I was, but that might not have been the case when I first arrived. I certainly had my guard up in Peace Corps for reasons I’m not quite sure of myself. I think I often felt judged by my peers and when I imagined Peace Corps I didn't imagine other volunteers to be a part of my service. So I think that has something to do with my becoming more decisive in the beginning of my service. I was trying to fill a role as a leader but I don’t think any of us wanted to be led. But now that I’m reading through the INFJ description, it is very suitable to who I am now at this point in my life. The only difference is that I have been more inclined to my introverted tendencies rather than being an extrovert because my professional setting is one where I am an introvert. My activities in my village that I consider de-stressors are more inclined to a reflective and individual state whereas in the states what I considered de-stressing was going out with a bunch of my close friends and having a good time. We are all continuously changing, I guess I should be thankful that I am able to adapt and fit various molds depending on where I am in my life. Some people might be the same person they were when they were 5 years old and I think a lot of personal growth has to do with how willing we are to put ourselves in situations which are outside of our comfort zone.

So in the course of almost 2 years, my MBTI type has changed 4 times.