I'm an ENFP

I'm now on the board of directors for the local chapter of the Association of Women in Communications. In preparation for this weekend's planning retreat, I took the Myers-Briggs personality assessment. I've taken these tests before, but I was curious to see if anything had changed since I last took the test in grad school. It hadn't. I'm an ENFP.

So what does this mean? ENFP stands for Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving. According to the Web site where I retook the test,

ENFPs are introspective, values-oriented, inspiring, social and extremely expressive. They actively send their thoughts and ideas out into the world as a way to bring attention to what they feel to be important, which often has to do with ethics and current events. ENFPs are natural advocates, attracting people to themselves and their cause with excellent people skills, warmth, energy and positivity. ENFPs are described as creative, resourceful, assertive, spontaneous, life-loving, charismatic, passionate and experimental.

Only about 3% of the population are ENFPs. A couple of other things found interesting about ENFPs, and true about myself, include:

• ENFPs are warm, enthusiastic people, typically very bright and full of potential
• ENFPs have an unusually broad range of skills and talents
• They are good at most things which interest them
• Project-oriented, they may go through several different careers during their lifetime
• To onlookers, the ENFP may seem directionless and without purpose, but ENFPs are actually quite consistent
• ENFPs almost always have a strong need to be liked
• Because ENFPs live in the world of exciting possibilities, the details of everyday life are seen as trivial drudgery
• They place no importance on detailed, maintenance-type tasks, and will frequently remain oblivous to these types of concerns. When they do have to perform these tasks, they do not enjoy themselves
• They may become unhappy when they are confined to strict schedules or mundane tasks. Consequently, ENFPs work best in situations where they have a lot of flexibility, and where they can work with people and ideas
• ENFPs often suffer from muscle tension
• They have a strong need to be independent, and resist being controlled or labelled
• Friends are what life is about to ENFPs
• ENFPs are energized by being around people. Some have real difficulty being alone, especially on a regular basis

So what do you think? Does this sound like me?