Are you an INFJ personality type? Have you ever tried to analyze INFJ strengths and weaknesses? Are you aware of the fact that these good and ugly qualities of an INFJ make them unique beings? INFJs are not many in the population however they hold a special place because of their reserved, intuitive, and empathic qualities. They are sweet and sour socially and not bitter at all.
People with INFJ preferences are idealistic and bestowed with values par excellence. They are the dreamers who visualize a fair world. These individuals are kind and compassionate. They are the advocates of goodness and justice. Being less money-minded, they are on a mission to make the lives of all simple, yet beautiful and ethical.
The INFJ type aims high and never loses sight of their big dreams that are to be put into reality. Because of this, they pursue their dreams and goals with precision and devotion like not many.
Let’s learn the strengths and weaknesses of this personality type and dive deep into their subtle intricate nature.
INFJ strengths and weaknesses
If you are an INFJ personality type, you should make a conscious effort to know your strengths and weaknesses so that you can overcome your weak areas and turn them into strengths forever. INFJs are advocates of strong values and opinions.
Being a typical introvert, INFJs are private people who use their intuition function to make sense of their surroundings. These individuals are emotional and sensitive, and tend to put emphasis on feelings while making a decision.
INFJs will approach their life in an organized and structured manner. They will remain less spontaneous and easygoing in most situations because of their serious personality type.
Their key strengths lie in their ability to remain honest and trustworthy even in dire situations. These individuals are kind and considerate. They keep others’ needs ahead of themselves. Being a warm-hearted person, an INFJ will not criticize others openly. They are caring of others’ sentiments and will never humiliate others publicly.
As far as their weaknesses are concerned, they are too sensitive and cannot tolerate harsh comments or criticism referred to them. In the face of stress, their self-esteem may crumble and they can act in pessimistic ways.
Sometimes their unrealistically high standards can put a lot of mental pressure upon them. They may lose their ability to function normally. People with INFJ preferences are hesitant to open up in social settings. This makes them appear submissive.
Sometimes, this nature acts as a primary weakness for them. Others may use them in varied ways if they do not know how to speak their mind assertively.
Let’s discuss their strengths and weaknesses separately now in the following sections –
10 INFJ strengths
The INFJ personality type is quiet, thoughtful, and creative. Being a sensitive type, they are gentle and persuasive. Empathy and kindness come naturally to them. They can think about others’ needs and feel others’ emotions deeply.
Their greatest strength lies in their ability to seek future possibilities and analyze the bigger picture of everything. They are bestowed with values and prefer to do the right things only. Given the ability to organize everything perfectly, INFJs feel bitter and annoyed in messy situations.
They are on a mission to put everything in its rightful place. Being a judging type, they are methodical and meticulous in all their actions. INFJs can plan things perfectly.
You will never find them doing anything in an unorganized and messy way. These individuals not only dream big, but put a lot of effort in making things a reality.
Here we discuss some well-known strengths of an INFJ personality type.
1. Creative bunch
INFJs are always looking out for creative things that can excite them and help them accomplish their goals. These individuals will think in innovative ways. They will come up with novel ideas and out of the box thinking that can benefit everyone. Advocates will embrace creativity.
They will surely appreciate works of art whenever it crosses their path. Being an intuitive introvert, INFJs possess an inner world that is rich and colourful, unique and novel. They prefer to make use of their best ideas and imaginations whenever given an opportunity. Most INFJs are good at interior designing, writing, doodling and sketching.
2. Bestowed with clarity of thought and understanding
INFJs are very much clear about what they are thinking and visualizing for the future. People with this personality type are creative, analytical, and can come up with ideas that are new and innovative.
They prefer to think about ambiguous topics that can lead to developing new problem solving strategies. They have a lot of practical insight that enables them to see through situations deeply. INFJs are also good at developing practical strategies for problem solving. This is possible because they think clearly and vividly.
3. Lots of compassion
Being a feeling personality type, INFJs have deep compassion that also has an intuitive edge. This means they are quick to notice subtle emotional pains and sufferings of others.
When outward signs of distress are not even obvious, they will be able to dive deep into people’s hearts and know what they are suffering from. They are capable of detecting hidden sufferings through unspoken words. Their instinctive-feeling function enables them to help people in distress.
4. Peace loving as always
INFJs are good at helping people resolve issues and personal rifts. These people are not the ones who harbor frustration and never forgive others. Instead, INFJs will always mediate disputes and help people overcome their differences and walk along the path of peace and prosperity.
INFJs are good listeners, so the mediation process becomes easy for them to execute in warring situations that needs to be calmed down instantly.
5. Decisive
The INFJ personality type is decisive and nothing in this world can stop them from realizing their goals in life. They believe that obstacles need to be overcome with grace. They are resilient and prefer to follow the path of values and conviction.
Their decisive nature helps them to remain focused in their project and accomplish it till the end. Being an organized person, they will follow through a systematic work plan and get things done in the best way.
6. Principled in nature
INFJs have high values that guide them towards righteous living. Their strong beliefs and values help them overcome all odds in life. It keeps them on the right track and they never seem to fall short of their ethical standards.
People with INFJ preferences will talk about issues that are relevant to them, or probably those that are close to their held beliefs and convictions. Even their idealism can inspire others to live their best lives.
7. Strong sense of purpose
INFJs have a strong sense of purpose in life. Advocates prefer to chase their dreams based on idealism and creativity. They dislike sitting back and doing nothing productive. It will make their life appear meaningless. Thus, they gear up too easily, and hone their strengths to fulfil their passion.
8. Armed with altruism
INFJs are helpful people. They will not shy away from helping the poor and the needy. They will use their strengths for some greater good that can benefit all others in the community.
They are watchful about how their words, action, and behavior can impact others in good ways. People with INFJ traits are helpful and cooperative. They are also considerate and may put the needs of others before themselves.
9. Attentive to detailing
INFJs are watchful and can see through the details much better than any other intuitive types. People with INFJ preferences have a long attention span.
They will probably take longer time to listen to the details of what others are trying to communicate to them. These people will also think about the strategies for best problem solving that is possible in a given situation.
10. Sacrificing and forgiving
INFJs are sensitive and gentle. Thus, it’s no surprise that they are equally forgiving by nature. They will never harbor resentments and tend to feel for everyone. Moreover, they will forgive people and try to maintain a healthy and warm relationship with everyone.
These individuals are self-sacrificing. They tend to put emphasis on satisfying others’ needs and not their own. These people prefer to help others’ even if it’s a discomfort for them.
7 INFJ weaknesses
The weaknesses of a personality type refer to those blind spots and areas of deficits that need to be overcome and improved for a balanced personality development. These weaknesses can make a person appear weak and can act as a constraint in the path of growth.
INFJ types also have their share of weaknesses. Let’s learn more about this in this section of the article.
1. Obsessed with perfection
INFJs are too perfect with everything. They will start to look for ways to improve upon things so that a mistake doesn’t occur. In doing so, they will make their life miserable. Instead of enjoying life, they will pressurize themselves in fixing things that need to be improved.
2. Takes criticism too personally
INFJs are too sensitive to handle criticisms. They may consider it as a personal attack and may feel dismissed in some ways. People with INFJ characteristics can become brutally defensive in the face of criticism.
Either they will deny the accusations completely, or will try to safeguard themselves from the emotional harm by scapegoating others. Either way, they actually try to clean their page as much as possible. This is a drawback because it tends to make them insecure and defend themselves for wrong reasons.
3. Reserved and reluctant to open up socially
Being an introvert, INFJs are not keen to socialize more than what is needed for their personal growth. They are reserved and hard to be known outwardly. Most INFJs prefer to have relationships in measured ways.
It means they will have a small friend circle. These individuals will never share their deepest feelings with others as they do not want to burden others with their woes and concerns.
They would prefer to keep their personal lives as private as possible. At times, their quiet and reserved nature can make them appear emotionally blunt. As such their relationships can hamper to a great extent.
4. Suffers from frequent burnouts
INFJs can suffer from burnout because they get stressed out with perfection. These individuals will strive to attain everything perfectly even at the cost of their mental health. Thus, emotional burning out is not uncommon with them.
People with INFJ personalities will also pour themselves too much into others’ life, at times to a state of burnout. They will have difficulties in maintaining a distance when it comes to their altruistic actions. Thus, they will feel overwhelmed emotionally when their health will start becoming tired and down-poured.
5. INFJs can easily feel discouraged
People with INFJ characteristics can feel discouraged and non-motivated if perfection is not in its rightful place. If they fail in their attempts to attain perfection in life, they will feel discouraged and suffer from emotional sufferings.
6. Tends to avoid conflicts
Another INFJ drawback is they avoid conflicts at all costs. Even when they know that the other person is not correct, they will try to mitigate the issue peacefully. However, this behaviour needs to be changed because they are always used for their good actions.
Others try to use them in ways that are unauthentic. INFJs need to understand that sometimes disputes need to be resolved with frictions and fights so that the issue never arises anytime later on. The action of peace making is good but only to a certain extent, not always.
7. Too sensitive
The INFJ personality type is gentle, soft, and extremely sensitive. They may easily become emotional by knowing the hurtful stories of others. In such a situation, they will lend their patient ears to hear the agonies of the sufferers. But the problem is they don’t stop here.
INFJs will internalize the pains and suffering of others as if it had happened to them. In this way, their too empathetic nature makes them prone to emotional burnout. They should know how to set healthy emotional boundaries so that the agonies of others do not impact their emotional health directly.
INFJ personality growth and development
Each of the 16 personality type discussed in Myers Briggs test has the ability to grow and develop their strengths and remove or overcome their weaknesses by walking along the path of scheduled development procedures.
For an INFJ personality type, their growth plan should include the following steps.
1. Have an inner dialogue with their intuition function
INFJs have strong instincts however these instincts can also betray them in subtle ways, if they try to use it too much while dealing with others. If an issue appears concerning, an INFJ should withdraw from the situation and think about it deeply, instead of openly talking about it in front of others.
When they become sure of the pitfalls in the issue, it’s important to talk openly and discuss the matter with others openly. They should improve their communication style and allow others to peep inside their deep hearts.
The inner dialogue with the intuition function will allow better clarity of the problem. They will also touch base with their deepest emotions and would be pretty sure about how much to share in front of others.
Improving communication is important and INFJs should learn to share their good and bad feelings after thorough, thoughtful considerations.
2. Use benefit of doubt while dealing with others
INFJs are insightful and idealists. They prefer to invest in selling ideas that have worked for them with all others. These individuals would hate to be cornered, if others try to dismiss their opinions and suggestions.
They may start thinking that the other person might be having some hidden agendas that are not healthy. INFJs will doubt the intentions of such people openly. This can ruin their personal and professional relationships also.
INFJs should learn to accept others’ with some benefit of doubt. They should learn to accept the contrary viewpoints so that the lines of communication remain open for future use as well.
3. Conflicts are not always bad
The INFJ type is a peace-loving person. They will try out endless ways to retain harmony and peace in a situation. They are not the ones to initiate fights and prefer to maintain cohesiveness at all costs.
In the face of confrontation with anyone, they will either avoid the conflicting situation or will abide by the other person’s sayings even when they know that the other person is wrong.
INFJs should realize that peace is worthy but conflicts are good as well. Sometimes a confrontation can resolve matters in a better way than the peace making endeavor.
Sweeping everything beneath the rug may keep the conflict undercover for the moment, but it can come up anytime later on. Thus, it is worthy to resolve the issue here and now, so that it gets resolved forever.
4. Make friendships with the extroverts
INFJs are reserved and quiet. As such they will never blow their trumpet in front of others. In spite of having so many qualities, people will not know about them as they should be known to the outside world. INFJs should interact more socially and try to let themselves know in finer ways.
Friendly relationships with extraverted people will help an INFJ develop their communication style. They will learn ways to freely mix with others and would also learn clear-cut emotional expression that is good for a poised mental health.
5. Slow down
To develop themselves thoroughly, INFJs should learn to slow down. They should not bury themselves under too much work and too much perfection. They should invest time in self-care as well, so as to maintain a balance between work-life endeavors.
To Sum Up
INFJs are not like any other Myers Briggs introverts. They are the dreamers with a creative inclination. These individuals hold a quiet lifestyle and their varied qualities always remain under cover because of their inability to speak about their own qualities.
People with INFJ traits are versatile and they should try to overcome their weak areas as much as possible so that their strengths outshine and make them appear more progressive and outgoing in the social sphere. It is important for them to come out of the safe space and take over the center stage quite often. Their ingenious nature needs a thorough social recognition.
