Someone asked me on Twitter how I became so knowledgeable about INFPs. The question makes me a little uncomfortable because it infers that I have some expertise with INFPs. I don’t. I’m just very knowledgeable about me as an INFP.

I read Type Talk and Please Understand Me when I was 20 and fell in love with personality psychology. I read Myers and Briggs’ Gifts Differing. I read Please Understand Me 2. That’s the extent of my formal knowledge of the MBTI, and on top of that I disagree with the books.

I’ve always disliked the various descriptions for INFP. Some of it was true some of the time. Other parts didn’t apply at all. One sentence described me incredibly accurately and the next would be way off base. I quickly decided that the MBTI types were really MBTI stereotypes. I don’t mind stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalizations and generalizations can be useful, but they have no nuances. They don’t take explain the gradations and the exceptions. The INFPs throughout my life are all very different even though we share certain common behaviors.

That’s got me to thinking over the last 20 years of why INFPs are so different. Why are some Christians and others are Wiccans? Why are some more successful in their careers than others? I wrote this blog to share those thoughts about INFPs.

So why is it that happiness seems more elusive for INFPs than the other MBTI types?

I don’t think I’ve met anyone who doesn’t want to be happy. For INFPs, we are happiest when we are being ourselves. Our difficulty with happiness arises because we define ourselves by Ideal Self not by our Emerging Self. I prefer the term Emerging Self over Actual Self because the word “emerging” has connotations of movement, of becoming more.

INFPs are in a perpetual state of Becoming. We see ourselves as the butterfly even though we may still be in the chrysalis.