That Personality Test Was My Verdict. And Exactly What I Needed.

It was exactly what I didn’t want to read.

The night was warm. I was sitting on my terrace in Valencia, Laptop on my legs. In disbelief, I stared at the lengthy document.

Hi, I am Jacky. And I am classified as an ENFP personality.

An Inconvenient Truth

This year, three people suggested I do the Myers-Briggs typology of 16 personalities.

Okay, okay, universe.

That was a loud sign.

After completing it, I made a pact with myself: I will share the results with no one. Despite the Medium crowd.

I mean, you don’t see me in person.

And I am excited to read from people who did the test, too.

For me, the result is inconveniently accurate: ENFP.

Quick Intro: What Myers-Briggs Is About

The 16-personality typology, also called the Myers-Briggs test, was developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs, in the 1940s.

It sorts people into 16 personality types based on A-B tests. You’re either

• introverted (I) or extroverted (E)
• intuitive (N) or sensing (S)
• thinking (T) or feeling (F), and
• judging (J) or perceiving (P).

…

Combine those four letters, and you get your type.

Something like INTJ or ENFP.

The idea is that these preferences shape how you process information, make decisions, and interact with the world.

Back to my outcome, how it hit me hard, but also helped to understand myself better.

ENFP: A Sensitive Social Butterfly With Lots Of Ideas

Swoosh, there it was, black on white.

I had a two-digit-page manifest about everything I didn’t want to be and everything I want to unlearn.

ENFP means that I am

• an extrovert person (E) who is
• intuitive (N) rather than sensing;
• feeling (F) rather than thinking, and
• perceiving (P) rather than judging.

…

Everything holds true, despite the fact that I felt offended by a lot of that. Especially the ‘feeling, not thinking’.

Man, I think a goddamn lot and try to detach this from my emotions.

ENFPs are very connective people with a large social network, great communication skills, and an outstanding ability for persuasion.

My inner resistance

On the flip side, they are often stressed out by too many ideas in their head and struggle to focus.

The description sounded like: congrats, you are a very loud butterfly with scattered thoughts.

That’s the very short form.

Did I mention I didn’t like it?

After reading my results, I heard lots of podcasts and read articles about ENFPs.

There’s a whole universe about the Myers-Briggs personality types on the internet!

I concluded my active dislike of the outcome was worth diving into. It may say more about myself than the actual personality classification.

Facing my blind spots

I asked myself: Why do I judge my results so negatively?

Deep down I know: Many of the positive capabilities of an ENFP person are associated negatively for me.

I don’t like being the social butterfly, because I don’t know when to stop. I normally notice too late when my energy is already empty.

Also, loud people always scream ‘hot air’ to me — all talking, no truth. Even when I am one of them.

I don’t like to be ‘open’ because it’s hard for me to have strong boundaries to my energy at the same time.

I could list 37 more things, but I guess it’s just very uncomfortable to read your struggles black on white when you are already very aware of them.

I know, I somewhat have to befriend my weak spots while working on them.

What the test also showed is: I knew myself very well before taking it. Yet, I lacked the exact words to describe some patterns so accurately.

Caution: Personality tests are a slippery slope

The danger with such tests is always being put into a box that is way too small or inaccurate.

And this is most often the case, as we humans are such complex beings.

It also holds true for me. For example, when I meet people, I can be super extroverted and open. However, I need lots of space for myself at the same time.

If a personality test gives you an outcome, you are always invited to challenge or refine it.

I just take it as a blueprint for reflection.

However, in that case I was surprised how accurately other ENFP people described emotions and situations that could have been from my own life.

So it definitely helped to understand some pattern of mine wi

Cool. I mean, not as cool as I’d like to be.

How I Read The Test

While this test gave me the option for a very interesting reflection, I don’t take on the results as my personality.

‘ENFP’s have hard times committing to something and following through. Well, that’s exactly my strength.

Despite having many ideas and such a big imaginative world in my head, I am the most stubborn person that I know. I have stamina that I myself find ridiculous at some points.

I mean, I’ve been on Medium for 5 years. My audience grows slowly. But suddenly, it grows more.

So while my core character traits may conform with the ENFP-logic, I am certainly a lot more.

Did you take the test? I’m curious what you got and whether you liked it.

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