In my experience, I have seen a lot of INFP women who think they are INFJs — a lot. That’s the most common mistype in my long experience consulting with people.
However, if a woman is truly an INFP, but following INFJ advice, she is going to be led subtly off-path, get stuck, and not know what the problem is, nor how to fix it.
For example, Morning Pages is something that I without hesitation, prescribe to INFJs who are stuck. If they do them consistently, it always works wonders in their life. On the other hand, when I do the same thing for an INFP, they lose motivation quickly, and don’t stick with it. What generally works better for them is to do something fun and engaging in the actual world.
Many INFPs don’t like their temperament setup and want to be someone else. It is typical for them to lack a realistic self-picture of who they are and their capabilities. I’ve known a few INFP women that want to dance and express themselves physically, like their female ENFJ cousins, but this doesn’t work for INFP women, unless they have that special someone to dance for.
They want to be sexy and in-demand, like the ENFJ female is pretty much effortlessly, but it’s easy for an ENFJ woman to be like this, and that’s the key — it’s easy.
What’s easy for an INFP woman? Not a whole lot in this Western world of tough competition for partners and material resources. She’s at a disadvantage in this climate. What are her strengths then?
Think of INFP as Pisces and you will immediately see what her strengths are. Just read this article I wrote and it will immediately clear things up: Pisces personality. Pisces are not suited for life in this world, but the one thing that they can do that puts everyone else to shame is to love.
When I say love, I don’t just mean ordinary garden-variety love, I’m talking about cosmic world-altering love. As a matter of fact, INFP woman’s love is as close as you will get to unconditional love. I know what she’s thinking right now, <<Great, I have this massive capacity to love, which means I’m going to be taken advantage of by every near-do-well and sob story around — wonderful>>.
Hey, but I also said Pisces was good at sex, a fact which I kept reiterating, and so it is with INFP women. I’m talking about cosmic sex, deep sex…soulmate sex. Most men aren’t in this sort of thing, but the ones that are…well, INFP woman just cornered the market on that.
Indeed, sex is important to INFP women, but this means sex in a committed relationship, and ideally, sex with a soulmate.
So, love and sex. Not bad. This means the lNFP woman needs love in her life. If she doesn’t have someone to love, she is doomed to be a cat lady.
Since she is so strongly inclined in this direction, INFP can let her life go to the farthest extent of disarray and depression if she doesn’t find a life partner by the right time. This causes an unvirtuous cycle. The longer she goes without a man, the less any man would be attracted to her in the first place, because no one is attracted to a needy person that has no life.
But, there’s hope!
If the INFP woman was able to admit she is in fact an INFP, and not an INFJ (or ENFJ), then she has a chance at sorting out the situation. A whole array of solutions become available that she never considered because she couldn’t even come to the first step.
What I discovered while working with INFP women over the years is that their greatest happiness in life was when they were at university or traveling to foreign and exotic destinations. They love learning and traveling. In case you don’t know cognitive functions, this is her extraverted intuition auxiliary function kicking into action.
What does this mean?
That in order for her to be compatible with her life, she has to learn new things and travel to new places. She needs novelty. This gets her out of the rut that her tertiary introverted sensation gets her into.
INFJs on the other hand, they don’t so much like to travel. They prefer staying in one location and traveling in their minds.
Anyway, I feel this is the one thing that has held INFP women back more than anything — thinking they are INFJs. This suggests the importance of being typed correctly, but also the willingness to know the truth. From there, she is in a position to change her life. Nevertheless, in my experience so many INFP women cling obtusely to a label that isn’t working for them, and stubbornly plow forward with a complete lack of insight regarding who they are what makes them tick.
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