My Meyers-Briggs Type Analyzed

ENFP: Extravert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving


According to my MBTI Profile, this means:

Extravert: I focus my attention on the outer world of people and things.

Intuitive: I take in information from patterns and the big picture and focus on future possibilities.

Feeling: I tend to make decisions based primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of person-centered concerns.

Perceiving: I tend to like a flexible and spontaneous approach to life and prefer to keep my options open.


Being an ENFP, I am energized by new ideas and possibilities. In fact, I am more focused on possibilities that actuality. My new ideas need to be discussed with other people in order for me to make them real and stay interested in them. My ideas are often creative ways to solve problems. These are the traits that will keep me interested in advertising over the years. There is always something new - a new campaign, a new idea involved in a stagnant campaign. My creative problem solving will help me to think outside the box and come up with new, unique ideas for creative, or strategy. Although, according to Life Explore from Geocities, The Personality Type Tool Kit, Wikibooks and PersonalityPage.com I am more inclined to go to the creative side. ENFP’s have been described as “Good with words, creative and even a bit artsy” on Wikibooks. If I stick with the idea that I’d like to be a copywriter, this fits right in.
Saying “If I stick with..” is a good time to bring up two other points. The first is that because I am energized by new ideas, I tend to not always finish what I start. In a career, actually not finishing work isn’t an option but losing interest and not doing my best is an option. If a campaign dragged on for too long, would I lose interest? Probably. Even in class (Completeness - a class designed for students to create ad campaigns from meeting with the client/doing research to pitching the idea). I was done with the UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) campaign before I should’ve been mentally done with it. “They enjoy the process of creating something - an idea or a project - but are not as interested in the follow-through” (Life Explore). This is definitely something I need to work on, and doesn’t fit with any goal I have, unless my goal is to leave something unfinished. My second point is that according to Life Explore, “They leave no option or possibility unexplored and find it difficult to see themselves in any single job or career”. I find it hard to set a definite goal of what I want to do not only because of the way I decide things, by being a Feeling person, but also because I am a Perceiving person. Life Explore also states that “..they make the soundest choices when they delay career and marriage decisions until their middle to late twenties.” Good for me that it’s taken me so long to finish college, huh? My mid-twenties are here.
Speaking of decisions, I make mine by taking into account the people my decision may effect. This will serve me extremely well in my career goals because for every decision I make, I will automatically think of the client and/or the target audience. “They take the needs and concerns of other people into consideration in their planning and often devise innovative and humane solutions to problems” (Personality Type Tool Kit). I think this also ties into the tendency I have to look at the big idea rather than the details of things. I am a good big-picture thinker, not as much a detail-oriented person. I tend to be an excellent long-range thinker and can easily see the possible effects of an idea, program or service on others (Personality Type Tool Kit). According to PersonalityPage.com, “the ENFP may seem directionless and without purpose, but ENFP’s are actually quite consistent, in that they have a strong sense of values which they live with throughout their lives.” Although I know that I can come off as directionless and without goals, especially since I don’t have a five-year plan, I have goals. My goals just happen to be a big-picture instead of an exact plan. This ties in not only to how I make decisions, but also “because of their combination of preferences, ENFPs are naturally drawn to a wide variety of occupations” (The Personality Type Tool Kit).
Alicia Aroche (VCU Career Center employee with whom I met to explain my test results) discussed with me how I am okay not making a decision, whereas a Thinking person would never let a decision hang in the air. I drive these people crazy. My not making a decision means, to an ENFP, that there are endless possibilities. Although, I will admit that it was discussed that I could potentially miss out on a lot of opportunities because of a lack of willingness to commit. I am like this in all aspects of my life. I always wonder what else is out there, and is it better.
I am an extrovert meaning that I am genuinely interested in other people and I work well in a team, which is extremely important in any advertising career I choose to pursue. Part of being in a team that works well together is being flexible, which as a Perceiver, I am. I am more open to schedule changes, changes in a ‘meeting itinerary’ and leaving options open. According to Life Explore, ENFPs are astounding in getting people together, and are good at initiating meetings and conferences, although not as talented at providing for the operational details of these events. I may not be the best person to organize the happenings of a team meeting, I can organize everyone to get there and I can also help them to see the big picture of why we’re there. Someone else will have to organize exactly what will happen while we’re there. For example, in Completeness, I tend to organize the meetings - get everyone in the same place at the same time. Jason (a teammember from Completeness) is the one who comes with a list of things we need to talk about and get done.
Being an ENFP also means I can get others to be excited about my ideas, which is great if my idea is worth something. But, even if my personal idea isn’t the greatest, I show enthusiasm for my ideas when I’m with other people, so they can feed off of my idea, especially when I am excited about it. I can get them to want to work with my idea, to change it, shape it, make it better.
According to the Personality Type Tool Kit, one of the things I need to watch my tendency to do is getting bored when I have to work alone. I’ve read this, and I’ve also found that being an Extrovert combined with NFP means that although I am an extrovert, I need time to myself in order to process everything that has happened with other people. PersonalityPage indicates that my time alone is a way to center myself and ensure that everything going on is in line with my values. This is one way that I make myself successful, they say. It is by working well in a team and then being capable of going off on my own to analyze and put things in my own perspective. Wikibooks says that some ENFPs have difficulty being alone, especially on a regular basis. These are the kind of traits that can be changed. If this was said to me two or so years ago, I would agree. Before then I had never lived by myself - alone, no roommates, no family. But, two years later, here I am and I love to live by myself. But, then again, maybe that’s because I am around people all day and when I get home I get myself centered.
There was so much information out there on ENFPs I found it hard to tailor what I wanted to discuss. There are a few other things, though.
Everything I found said that I, as an ENFP, would be a good advertising person, especially creative. Initially, when I chose strategic advertising, I did it because I didn’t think I was creative enough. Throughout the past few semesters, however, I feel as if I could’ve done it, and perhaps I’d like to do it, especially copywriting. Everything I read said something about how I use creative problem solving, I like to come up with new ideas, I’m curious, I need to know everything - a sponge of knowledge, I am imaginative, etc. All of this makes me feel positive about my career. I feel as if these things, along with everything I read being focused on ideas instead of action, makes it seem as if success is mine as long as I work towards it.
Each piece of my research also said that ENFPs are born entrepreneurs. This is because we’re risk-takers who dislike authority and the mundaneness of an everyday business. We like to work with people and ideas.
I feel as if all of the analyses painted ENFP’s as flighty, off to the left kind of people. There were many lines that had words like “nonconformists”, “free-spirits”, “people who march to their own beat”. I think my favorite was from the analysis Ms. Aroche gave me. It said we were “not especially realistic”. I think these can be strengths, because I am not afraid to be who I am and I feel like so many people are afraid. I take other people into account when I make my decisions, but I don’t feel like I make my decisions for others. I care about others' opinions, but I am focused more on my own values. And, maybe I’m not always realistic. I am often in my own world, dreaming of things in my own big-picture, but that doesn’t mean I’m not grounded.