i'm an infj, 3w2, and also—

do you know everything about me yet??

You may be familiar with personality tests. I sure am. In middle school, I positively adored them, begging them to tell me all these different things about myself, and asking them to define me. 

When I met my best friend, we were both completely obsessed. One of the very first questions she asked me was if I had ever taken the Myers-Briggs test. If you aren’t familiar with it, the questionnaire, answered on a strongly disagree to strongly agree scale, is meant to identify a person’s personality type, strengths, and preferences. I had taken it, and I told her I was INFJ (introversion, intuition, feeling, judging). But no, she hated this test! How was I meant to know? This is when she whips out her journal and shows me her extensive notes about the test, and each different letter combination you could receive. Then, she tells me she’ll assess me as she gets to know me better. Unfortunately, if you’re curious, she never told me my true result. 

image from psychology matters, describes the myers-briggs result possibilities

So if someone asks, yes, I am an INFJ. This was my most recent result from the three times I’ve taken the test. But the second time I took it, I didn’t get INFJ! So what does this mean? Your personality isn’t stagnant, especially as you go from preteen to teen, so as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized how odd it seems to box yourself in this way. I don’t think my result says much about me consistently, but perhaps it defines me at certain times in my life. There was a point where I was apparently an extrovert. Perhaps that day, I was feeling incredibly social. Your personality and way of answering these questions can largely depend on how you’re feeling. Thus, it is unreliable to a certain degree.

About a year after the Myers-Briggs obsession, my best friend brought me another option. The Enneagram Test. This was particularly enticing, dividing people into nine core personality types, with a sub-personality type known as a wing. This was answered in the same manner as the Myers-Briggs, with strongly disagree to strongly agree used as a scale for scenario-based questions. 

health.com, nine different options of personality types

As of eighth grade (the last time I took the test, I am a junior now), I was a 3w2. This means I am Type Three, the Achiever, and then secondly Type Two, the Helper. The website has also informed me that this combination is known as “The Charmer”. I am not quite sure what this means. The description below Type Three is rather flattering, and I sure would like to relate to it. I’m not quite sure if it really describes me, but hey, if Enneagram thinks I’m destined to be a great success, who am I to dissuade it?

The true issue I have with the Enneagram, besides the things I detailed above for Myers-Briggs, is the list of levels they have to track your development. And as a quite obsessive, perfectionistic teenager, I fixated on this. 

I remember my best friend and I would sit on this dock near my house, and try to decipher which level we were on. The higher level we were, the better we were. How could I function the most efficiently socially, mentally, and proficiently? Over the summer and after much debate, we determined I had risen from level five, which is average, to level two, which is the second best. 

This is rather ambitious of me; I am certainly not a level two any longer. I would classify myself as more of a level four if I had to choose. But at the time, I figured once I reached these higher levels, I would continue ascending to a better and better version of myself. It’s not that my progress as a person has been noticeably descending (at least I hope not), but my situation has changed, new things have happened to me, and life has become more stressful. Moving through these levels of development isn’t something I can force, and I don’t try anymore. I will be the best person I can be, and knowing this is more valuable than forcing myself through these levels.

I don’t feel like I’ve learned anything about myself at all from these tests. Besides some particular things, it spits out a list of traits anyone could try to relate to. When people look at their results for these sorts of things, they’re a bit specific from the questions, but mostly they’re broad. Of course they are, they have to relate to so many people. But all these different individuals look at this list of traits, and naturally try to relate to them. Define your person, and don’t let a bunch of tests do it for you.