Why do we sometimes feel outsiders in our familiar places?

Were you ever in a meeting trying to find the right moment to share your idea, and never found it?

Or do you notice people focusing on details you never realised were there?

Or do you often you find yourself lost in a future thought?

Those are some of my personal examples.

I used to find myself in those situations very often. They made me feel awful, misunderstood and an outsider. Worst part? It happened with colleagues I had a good relationship, with friends and family.

With some time and effort, I learnt to speak up in meetings even if didn’t seem the perfect moment, to pay attention to details and specifics, and to ground my ideas.

Overall, my experience improved, but it was exhausting. It was high energy consuming.

I didn’t give it a thought until I came across the MBTIÒ and read about my personality type. It seemed magic how all the pieces of the puzzle started to fit into their right position.

It gave me tons of information about myself, my gifts (strengths) and blind spots; but most important, gave me a lot of information about my interaction with others.

It was such a mind-blowing experience that I fell in love with it immediately. I became a certified practitioner and adopted it as one of the self-knowing and self-development tools in my coaching.

What is MBTI?

The Myer Briggs Type Indicator assessment is a tool that has been developed based on Carl Jung's personality theories by 2 non psychologist women Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers who wanted to give massive access to C. Jung’s ideas.

It describes the personalities in a positive way, as there are no god or bad types. Each personality type has its gifts (strengths) and blind spots.

It is a widely used questionnaire and has been used in about every country in the world as its framework is cross cultural.

It can be applied in many areas, such as self-understanding and individual development, communication, change management, team building, management and leadership development, problem solving and conflict resolution, career development and exploration, relationships, education and learning style, etc.

Personality types are described through a combination of 4 letters. Each of those letters represent a preference coming from an opposite pair

Within MBTI, the preferences can be thought as a hand preference.

Just as you naturally may favor one hand over the other, you naturally favor one of the opposites in each of the four preference pairs. And just as you use both hands when you need to, you use both opposites of each pair to some extent.

Using the hand you don’t prefer feels less natural and takes more energy and concentration. It is the same with the non-preferred characteristic. You tend to feel at your best, when you are using your preferences.

Each preference pair takes into account a different aspect of our personality.

Let me introduce them briefly:

- Extraversion / Introversion: Refer to how do we direct and receive energy

- Sensing / iNtuition: Refer to how we take in information

- Thinking / Feeling: Refer to the way in which we make decisions and come to conclusions

- Judging / Perceiving: Refer to how we approach the outside world

I will be talking about each of these pairs, explaining their meaning, main characteristics, and interactions in the coming days.

Stay tuned!

You can also watch the videos in my IG @awarenesscoaching.lu