Creative idealist personality types INFJ, ENFP, INFP, and ENFJ are vulnerable to life’s disappointments like any other person. Highly idealistic and with strongly developed Intuitive and Feeling traits, it’s natural for us to resolve those disappointments by using our mental and emotional resources.
The Enneagram is unique to other personality models because it operates on the principle of “conscious change” in rewriting your mindset in different situations, to help you grow as an individual as you journey through life. As such, it suggests specific areas for self-development and growth. One area the Enneagram tackles is stress.
In this season of tricks or treats, when imaginations are encouraged to run wild and we squeal in delight at all things spooky, my mind wandered to monsters. Literary monsters, to be specific.
The nefarious creatures that have been woven into our collective storytelling for centuries fascinate me. I like to think even cavemen created monsters in their stories. Giant fangs and ravenous appetites warning little cave girls and cave boys to stick close and listen to their cave mothers.
When I was in college, I was confident that I knew exactly what I wanted to do as a career: I wanted to work in broadcast journalism.
It seemed like it was the perfect blend of my passion for theater and storytelling, so I secured a summer internship to help out in a local newsroom.
Wings: great when served deep-fried, paired with a tear-jerking ballad, or extended upon an intricate personality model to uncover your ego’s conscience (hint: what you’re about to learn). In short, Enneagram wings are important extensions of your core type, which provide more detail about your own unique, colorful personality.
From the epic science-fiction space drama to the coffeeshop meet cute in New York City; from the stuffy country detective to the next great American roadtrip hero, our novels, scripts, and short stories are defined by their characters. Fiction is known for its sign posts—the fairytale Happily Ever After, the satisfying conclusion to the WhoDunIt, the dismantling of fascist political regimes, the lesson learned, the day won.
You’ve heard the old saying, “no one is perfect.” Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses and different ways that we behave around others. Some of them, like the Type Four’s creativity or the Type Two’s natural sense of compassion, are talents to be developed. But we all have some areas where we could use some improvement. For Type 3 and Type 7, that trait is empathy.
How many times have we heard someone say, “I’m just not the creative type,” or worse, “I don’t have a creative bone in my body”? Unfortunately, in our Western workaday world, we have come to assume that creativity pertains to a limited scope of human endeavors—things like painting, composing, and acting—and that only a limited number of us have the acumen for such tasks.
Being honest in job interviews is important for your personal integrity but also because if you overpromise skills and attributes you don’t have, it will become obvious once you’re on the job. But what do you do when your honest answer could cost you the opportunity?
Everyone has shortcomings, regardless of your personality type. Interviewers aren’t looking for a “perfect” person, and if you appear to be one, they’ll know you’re not being totally truthful.
The infamous ditzy Christmas-tree brain strikes yet again. There’s something important you should be doing. That finals paper. The job application. The long conversation. The really-critical-and-time-sensitive-obligation. The big thing you’ve been putting off for quite some time now. You know very well what it is.
Procrastination is a phenomenon that arrives in all shapes and sizes—a lifestyle Perceivers live and breathe. Dr. Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, identifies three primary types of procrastination: