I’ve never been a fan of Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs because I never saw people moving from Physiological needs to Self-Actualization in any type of linear progression. We jump around. Sometimes love is more important than eating. Sometimes people forgo love completely for esteem through achievement.

Instead, I prefer Tony Robbins definition of the six basic human needs.

Certainty – This is our need to be free from constant worry. In order to achieve this we develop a certain amount of consistency like getting a job or buying a house. We don’t want to worry everyday about how we’re going to eat or where we can sleep safely.

Uncertainty – This is our need for variety. If we knew everything that was ever going to happen in our lives then our lives would be boring.

Critical Significance – This is our need to feel special. Some people make a lot of money to feel significant. Other people get a lot of tattoos. It’s different for everyone.

Love and Connection – This is our need for belonging. We don’t want to feel like we’re all alone inside our heads and our lives.

Growth – This is our need to avoid stagnation. Our lives never reach equilibrium. We are either growing or dying. If we stay at the same point in our lives for long enough, our level of happiness declines.

Contribution – This is our need to feel our lives are more than just ourselves. We don’t want to die feeling like our lives made no difference to anyone.

Achievement vs Fulfillment

Achievement comes from being successful in one or more of these areas. Fulfillment comes from not feeling lack in every area.

Achievement gives us short term happiness. We get a really good job and make a lot of money or we build the largest ball of twine and we meet our need of critical significance. It gives us self-confidence in that area. However, if the other areas are lacking we feel unhappy.

No matter how much success we have, if love is lacking and we feel disconnected from others, we’re unhappy. If we have a great family and friends and we feel totally connected, but we feel that we haven’t done much else to reach our dreams then our Growth need hasn’t been met and we feel like were in a rut.

Lasting happiness doesn’t mean great achievement in all these areas. To feel fulfilled, we only have to meet our basic needs in each area so we don’t feel like we are missing something from our lives.

Meeting Multiple Needs

Everything we do meets multiple needs. We don’t do one thing just to meet one need. I write this blog to meet my need for Critical Significance and Contribution. When my wife and I adopted, that decision lead to meeting our needs for Love and Connection, Contribution, Growth and Uncertainty.

I’ve found that certain Need combinations are healthier than others. The big combination I avoid is trying to mix Love and Connection with Critical Significance. This is the combination that gives you helicopter parents with a control issues. I think it also leads to deciding to have kids to save failing marriages and staying with people that treat you poorly.

When we combine needs we can focus on a fewer actions to meet those needs. Focusing on fewer things let’s us be better at those things. That’s how you a person gets both achievement and fulfillment.

Good vs Bad Need Combinations for INFPs

Good: Love and Connection with Growth – This keeps us focused on letting people into our lives that make us a better person.

Bad: Love and Connection with Critical Significance – This leads to neediness and unbalanced relationships because all relationship have a degree of Uncertainty and we get desperate if we see that relationship ending.

Good: Critical Significance and Contribution – This combination lets us do great things to help other people. It makes us have lives that isn’t just about us.

Bad: Critical Significance and Uncertainty – We get bored as INFPs. This leads us to taking stupid risks in order to feel more alive. This could be moving across the country or leave jobs and people. This is why we fall into intense relationships and start getting restless when we are finally confronted with the day-to-day realities of a relationship.

Good: Growth with anything except Certainty – Growth means having goals and getting to somewhere we aren’t yet. It means taking calculated risk. You can’t grow by doing more of staying where you are.

Bad: Critical Significance and Certainty – This is our desire to be right overcoming our desire to be effective. Thinking and being different than everyone else makes us feel special. However, we hold onto beliefs to feel special even though we realize that those beliefs haven’t made us happy.

Our Order of Needs

The order of importance of our needs is different from person to person. The order of importance is based on values. Some value Love and Connection over Critical Significance. Some value Contribution over Certainty.

Each unmet Need is a hurt. We hurt in that area. However, like our physical bodies we usually focus on our greatest hurt. If we’re in a car crash and we break our femur, we’re not going to feel the contusions our face. It’s the same with Needs. If Love and Connection is our highest Need, we’re not going to feel unmet Certainty Needs. After a breakup with someone we love, we don’t care about our job or if we eat.

Single people spend a lot of time being single. Broke people spend a lot of time being broke. Unhappy people spend a lot of time being unhappy. We focus on and talk about the things that are causing hurt in our lives. Unfortunately what we focus on becomes more real.

You know why people get into accidents by hitting the only tree in the middle of nowhere. They lose control of the wheel for a second and the first thing they do is focus on the thing they don’t want. Don’t hit that tree. Don’t hit that tree. And they end up hitting that tree because by focusing on the tree, their hands are unconsciously turning the wheel towards the tree.

It’s the same with all areas of our life. The more we focus on our lack, the more we turn the wheel of our lives towards that lack. Haven’t you ever heard people say, I found the husband/wife shortly after I decided to stop looking? It’s not that they stopped looking. It’s because they focused on something else other than being lonely.

Growth is the easiest Need to meet

Even though we may value other needs more intensely, Growth is the easiest to meet because it doesn’t require anyone else.

Certainty requires that someone else give us a job or that the grocery store doesn’t close early or the tax law doesn’t change or a variety of things beyond our control. Uncertainty requires outside situations because we only do things that surprise us when we are forced to. Critical Significance requires other people to recognize we did something significant. Love and Connection requires someone else for us to love. Contribution requires someone to reap the fruits of our efforts.

Growth is the only need that doesn’t require someone else. Growth is decision and action. We grow every time we make a decision and commit to it by taking action towards that decision. We grow by taking small actions each day to become our Ideal Self. If our Ideal Self is someone who is self-confident. We set a small goal each day and accomplish that small to build our confidence. If our Ideal Self is loving, we learn to consistently do thing to show that love for the people we care about. Growing is doing.

It’s from focusing on Growth that gives INFPs the self-confidence to attract those things and people into our lives that let us meet our other needs.

I like junk food. I love Kit Kat bars and triple chocolate cheesecake. I like soda.

About a month a go, I stopped drinking two sodas each day. I use to get to work in the morning and drink a Mountain Dew for the caffeine. Then I’d have a Coke with lunch. If I was going out that night to eat with friends then it would be another Coke plus at least 1 or 2 refills.

Then I stopped, but not completely. I’ve had three sodas in the last month. I don’t think I’ll ever stop completely because I like soda. I like a lot of things that have no nutritional value, but I don’t eat Kit Kat bars and triple chocolate cheesecake with dinner every night.

That’s why I’m don’t think I will ever stop procrastination. Although junk foods have little nutritional value, they taste really good filling up my stomach. Like junk food, I have junk activities. I enjoy these activities immensely but they do little to advance my quality of life. Television is enjoyable but it’s just junk food for my life. It fills up my time but has very low life value.

Eating enough junk food on a regular basis makes us unhealthy. If we do enough junk activities consistently, we develop low self-esteem. We can feel our life congealing around us like extra pounds added to our body. It’s a slow process. We don’t wake up one day and we’re fat much like we don’t wake up one day and have low-self esteem.

Procrastination isn’t the real issue

When we procrastinate, we avoid doing something we feel is unpleasant. However, everything I’ve ever procrastinated on I’ve completed on time. I make my deadlines. I get the results I need. It may be stressful for a short period, but short bursts of stress is healthy if spread out of over time.

The real issue is what we do when we procrastinate. For example, let’s say we have four hours to clean the house before guests come over. We know it will take 30 minutes. It’s our activities during those 3.5 hours before we clean that causes problems.

We start filling that time with fillers. Time fillers are like white bread. White bread is all calories and no nutritional value. Time filler activities suck up time without adding life value. Doing them doesn’t feel like a junk activity until we ask how has that activity improved our lives while we were procrastinating.

How procrastination really harms you

All activities fall into four categories.

Urgent/Important – Things we’ve been procrastinating that we’ve almost run out of time to do.

Not-Urgent/Important – Quality of life activities. Critical activities that have high consequences that we still have of time to get done. Stuff that gets procrastinated.

Urgent/Not-Important – Phone calls from people. Life drama that diverts our attention.

Not-Urgent/Not-Important – Time fillers. Taste great but life-fattening activities.

When the deadline for the activity we avoided doing comes close, we work hard in short bursts to achieve the results required or face consequences. This doesn’t cause issues unless we need do it again right away.

When INFPs procrastinate, we go into avoidance mode. We seek comfort in the Not-Important activities. It’s our reward first for our short burst of frenzied work later. Meanwhile the Not-Urgent/Important stuff that’s time sensitive starts creeping into the Urgent/Important category. So it feels like were always stressed from going from one crisis to another. Those repeated short bursts of stress-filled activity starts wearing us down day after day until we shut down.

Procrastination seeps the self-esteem. Self-esteem comes from how we feel about what we do. INFPs do realize that even though we may enjoy video games, playing World of Warcraft 12 hours a day doesn’t improve the quality of our lives, it only alleviates the current quality of life. Mass consumption of time with Not-Important activities is like eating cheesecake all the time. Eventually, we stop feeling well.

Procrastinate with high quality of life activities

When we’re not doing something that has a deadline, we’re doing something else. Improving our lives comes from doing something else with a high quality of life value instead of time fillers that are all empty life calories.

Anything that falls into the Not-Urgent/Important category is something we don’t have to do later. Doing those items keeps us from procrastinating on those items later. If we fill up all our procrastination time with high quality of life activities, our self-esteem will never feel starved from lack of psychological nutrition.

Doing what’s left isn’t healthy

If you enjoy cheesecake and ice cream as much as I do, stopping makes no sense. Why stop doing something you like?

The question is how much and how often?

How much cheesecake do I really want to eat? How much television do I really want to watch? Often times, we eat what we have left in the kitchen. Sometimes, what’s left may only be condiments.

We do activities that we have left. Filling the pantry of our time means having goals we feel are worth accomplishing. It means having goals we can act upon now. Without these goals, what’s left is television and Googling things we wish we could have one day.

Rewarding doesn’t work for INFPs

Conventional wisdom tells us to reward ourselves after we’ve accomplished something or have cheat days where one day a week, we can eat whatever we like.

For INFPs, this doesn’t work. INFPs are defined by doing what we feel. If something feels good, not doing it feels like lack. It feels like denial of who we are.

This means that anything in the Not-Urgent/Important category must make us as feel as good as our time fillers. This takes reframing. Shakespeare in Hamlet said, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Everything is about how we interpret it.

For me, eating vegetables doesn’t taste as good as eating cheesecake. However, the feeling I get from knowing that every day my health is improving, that I’ll be able to do more and keep up with my kids as they get older, feels just as good as the sense of decadence I get from a really good triple chocolate cheesecake.

For an INFP, anything we do that’s Not-Urgent/Important has to make as feel as good as watching television or whichever junk activity we like best. If we cannot reframe how we feel about these high quality of life activities, then we’ll always feel like we’re not being ourselves when we do these activities.

Why not stop altogether

Because it feels good. Junk activities feel good as they should. However, they shouldn’t feel better than the high quality of life activities.

This way when we choose an activity to feel time, we aren’t choosing between what feels good and what doesn’t. We are choosing between what moves us forward and what doesn’t.

Yesterday, my 6 year old daughter’s teacher told us that my daughter R. has been acting up in class. Mostly, it’s just refusing to do the current class activities.

When did this happen? I thought everything was going fine. R. can read Harry Potter and recently used “discombobulated” in a sentence which excites me to no end. So she still has to count seven plus two on her fingers. I was good at math but I don’t think it’s that big a deal if she’s not up to speed with the other kids.

At home, I drop everything when I get off work and spend time with her and her sister equally. We play whatever they want. Mom helps R. with her math homework and R. is usually done with her reading homework already. R. is pretty well behaved for a 6 year old INFP who can’t sit still for one moment. My wife and I write that off to her free spirit personality. I figured everything was okay.

Guess what? My daughter told me she hates being given extra time to do her math quizzes at school. It makes her feel stupid and she’s embarrassed that other kids can do the quizzes so much faster than her. She doesn’t like math, but he dislikes being bad at it even more. When did I forget what’s not important to me might be a big deal for her?

As INFPs, we have many areas in our life that we have to maintain whether it’s work, relationships, personal development, school, etc. If some part goes well, we put that part on autopilot while we concentrate on the areas that interest us. Autopilot is where we do the same things in any given area in order to maintain that area without having to focus our mental energies there.

So that’s what I did. I put parenting on autopilot. I came home, played with the kids, took them out to do stuff on the weekends. I gave them choices wherever I could and disciplined them when they wouldn’t do the things they had no choice about. I did it by rote. And that’s how things fall apart.

INFPs always have The Project that is consuming them at any given moment. Everything else goes into autopilot. The areas in autopilot eventually degrade to the point where we eventually have to focus our energies back in that area to get it back into our comfort zone. What we forget to realize is that, in doing so, we stunt our growth.

People grow as a whole, not in parts. We don’t go to the gym and just work out our arms for a 6 months and then switch to another part of our body. But that’s what INFPs tend to do internally. We focus on our current Project. Everything else is on auto unless it starts degrading and only then do we shift just enough focus to get things back to a comfortable level.

Unfortunately, entropy is a natural part of living. What isn’t growing is dying. So when we put things on autopilot, we’re actually letting those parts die a little. Sometimes, situations, things, relationships, those areas that we put through that roller coaster of growing and dying, just can’t be revived anymore. That’s when things fall apart.

We do a full focus shift onto the area that’s dying and isn’t reviving the way it did the other 20 times before and we can’t figure out why. All the actions we use to take to get that area back into the comfort zone isn’t working. We get a little panicky so we shift more energy there. The other areas that we had been putting energy into to just maintain are now degrading at a much faster rate. It’s just cascades from bad to worse from there.

It’s a nasty cycle and this is why it seems why things go from good to bad so suddenly for INFPs. One minute it’s great and wham, it’s bad. In truth it doesn’t happen suddenly, we just took for granted that once we got certain areas to a certain comfort level that it would stay that way.

So what now? I’ve got to stop being so obsessive about my Projects to the exclusion of other areas. I’ve always known that but knowing the answer and doing the answer are too different things. If I find a good solution, I’ll let you know. But for now, in the words of GI Joe, knowing is half the battle.

In my daily life, I play several roles: father, husband, employee, blogger, friend, etc.  Each of those roles requires a certain set of behaviors to be successful in that role.  Also, those roles are transient.  I haven’t always been a father and sometime in the future, my role as a son will pass away with my parents.

Our Identity or a better term, our Self, is not so fleeting.  We are who we are and I posit that we have always known who we are. Our Self is an amalgam of our values and beliefs.  Our roles are an external manifestation of those values and beliefs.

For some, they’ve chosen to make their primary role their identity.  Ask any random person the question, “what do you do?” and more than likely the answer will be their role as a income earner, i.e. I’m a maintenance engineer or I own my own business.  The danger in closely identifying your Identity/Self with your roles is that roles can be taken away.  Your role as an athlete might be arbitrarily taken away by a drunk driver.  Your role as a employee might be downsized because of the economy.  If we make our Roles our Identity, what happens to us if those roles are suddenly taken away?  We end up “losing” ourselves.

Also, making Role as Identity becomes a huge issue for INFPs because INFPs project their ideal/future roles into their Identity.  However, some roles are not readily available.  Not everyone can be a bestselling author or an international man/woman of mystery.  So what happens when that role we’ve so long identified with doesn’t come to fruition?  We end up feeling like failures.

Our roles are not our identity, and more importantly failure in a role is not failure of Self.  Sometimes, I’m not such a great dad.  Other days, I can’t seem to solve a problem at work and I fail as an employee. Just because we fail in a role, doesn’t mean we are a failure as a person.  How can a person fail at being who they are?  We only fail at achieving results in roles.

As we go from role to role in our daily life, we find that we have more success with some roles than others.  Also, some roles seem easier to play than others.  Why is this?

Each role requires certain behaviors, some of which may be against the INFP type preference. To be a successful employee for most jobs, we can’t show up anytime we want.  INFPs will show up on time if they have to.  INFPs can and will do many things against type preference if that role requires them to and if success in that role is important to them.

Sometimes for an INFP, certain objectives feel like two steps forward one step back because the role is so against preference that our natural tendencies sabotage the behaviors required for success.  At other times, a role seems easy because behaviors for success are closer our INFP preferences.

I think it’s Role-Identity confusion that is the main source of different results when a person takes the MBTI or its many variants multiple times. Most of these online variants are self-administered and don’t take into account that people will answer according to which ever role is dominant at the time.  I think that’s why so many people seem to hover between letters and cannot figure out if they’re J or P, or F or T.

Take for example question 69 of the Keirsey temperament sorter.  Do you prefer the (a) planned event (b) unplanned event?

For myself, in the role of the father, I prefer the planned event. My unplanned events with my young children, usually ends with bored kids getting into mischief.  In my role as a friend, I prefer the unplanned event. I’d rather go over to a friend’s place and hangout.  This is where self-directed, forced questions assessments fail because some questions leave test-takers scratching their head thinking, “well I do both.”

The inevitable reply from test-givers is “Which do you prefer more?” in regards to planned/unplanned events.  What I hear is: which do you prefer to be more successful as:  your role as a father or your role friend?  The results end up being skewed unless the test-taker can separate their Role from their Identity.

So if Role is an outward manifestation of Identity, wouldn’t answering those questions as any role give an accurate result?  I don’t think anyone wants to be a failure in any of their chosen roles.  So we end up adopting behaviors outside our preferences to be successful. The MBTI and variants assess behavior not the reasons behind those behaviors.  It doesn’t measure our want or need to be successful in a particular role.

Also, when we answer a personality inventory, we take on the role of test-taker.  For an INFP, we want our results to show our Ideal Self, to reassure and reinforce the idea that we are better than our current behaviors. Generally, people have a natural tendency to want to look good.  There is no lie scale built into any of these assessments so the results don’t take into account Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and the observer effect.  The act of measuring affects the results of what’s being measured.

So how does one really know if they’re an INFP?  INFPs have a reason for being INFPs.  Some INFPs answer questionnaires, some just read the descriptions but every one of us has a reason as to why we decided to see ourselves as INFP.  For INFPs, the reason is everything.