Are you an Introvert or an Extrovert?

The age old question: are you an introvert or are you an extrovert?

I am an introvert and I have struggled with it immensely over the years! Tony Gentilcore tackles this topic in two of his latest blog posts, here and here, discussing how a coach can use this personality trait to their advantage.

The ironic part is I have no issue presenting information in front of a large crowd. I've done this several times, including presenting my senior case study to a group of about 600 students and faculty members at a student conference, and other than my tendency to speak very fast, I totally rocked it! But ask me to call and order a pizza, forget it! Thankfully Judah has no problem ordering food ;P

I've been thinking about this a lot recently because of moving to a new place and trying to fit in. I have never made friends easily and I don't have a large group of friends. I remember having a conversation with my former roommates when I was their RA and they told me "it took like 6 weeks before you even really talked to us!" And I have four other groups of roommates of whom none of them are my friend today. I've never connected closely with coworkers, unless I had a previous social connection with them, and it sometimes became a problem. I had a hall director in college who could not understand why I kept a professional relationship with my coworkers and feared for my social well-being at future jobs. Needless to say, that was the same hall director who told me maybe I should quit Res Life.. But he had a point to a degree.

Our culture has a difficult time understanding introverts. Why don't you want to always be in the middle of things? Why don't you enjoy large crowds of people? What's wrong with you? You can't possibly be happy staying in on a Friday night.

But the truth is.. yes I am! Thankfully I like to plan in advance and there have been many occasions where I made plans ahead of time for a Saturday night. I would have backed out if I had made the plans that day because it's difficult for me to want to go and "be social".

I definitely know I am not a recluse because I love talking with people. I just happen to prefer it one on one or in very small groups for short periods of time.

I took the Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers Personality Test to see where I scored today.  It's a personality test that assesses four dimensions. First it assesses where you draw you energy from. Extroverts have external sources and introverts have internal sources that drive their energies. That's why an extrovert needs lots of external stimulation, whereas introverts don't. The personality test also assesses how you perceive information. Either you sense it, relying on fact, or you use intuition, or your own understanding of the world. Then how do you process this information? Do you think and make decisions logically, or do you feel and make decisions based on emotions? Finally, do you function primarily through judgement (operate within strict rules and norms) or perception (operate within opportunities and possibilities of what could be).

So I got INTJ - introvert, intuitive, thinking, and judging. Here are some highlights of the description:
- specialized knowledge systems established at a young age
- in areas of expertise, can tell you immediately if they can or can't help you
- they know what they know and know what they don't know
- perfectionists always seeking improvement in anything that interests them
- always asks the question, "does it work?"
- known as system builders and have no tolerance for "slackers"
- will undermine supervisors or coworkers if they see the answer to a critical decision, but will recognize all contributing efforts on a project, even those often unnoticed by others
- what they do tends to be what they know - sciences, engineering, law, academia
- extremely private people, naturally impassive = hard to read
- want other people to make sense
- have willingness to "work at" relationships
- their relationships with others reflect robustness, stability, and good communications

Seems pretty spot on to me! I chose Athletic Training in college because I loved exercise and science, but wanted to do more than just study it. I have also noticed that if I have a passion for something, you can't stop me from pursuing it and wanting to improve in that area, but if I have no interest in something, good luck motivating me to do anything with it!

I LOVE this type of stuff - personality assessments, psychological profiles, etc. Probably because I want people to make sense ;) haha
But seriously, that's why I minored in psychology in college. It fascinates me how the mind works and why we do the things we do. Which is sort of a nice transition into my next blog post in my L.O.V.E. series!

Readers: I challenge you to take the personality test above and determine your personality type. Did the test accurately reflect what you've observed about yourself?