As an ISFJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you take things in

via your five senses in a literal, concrete fashion. Your secondary mode is external, where

you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit into your

personal value system.

ISFJ's live in a world that is concrete and kind. They are truly warm and kind-hearted,

and want to believe the best of people. They value harmony and cooperation, and are

likely to be very sensitive to other people's feelings. People value the ISFJ for their

consideration and awareness, and their ability to bring out the best in others by their firm

desire to believe the best.

ISFJ’s have a rich inner world that is not usually obvious to observers. They constantly

take in information about people and situations that is personally important to them, and

store it away. This tremendous store of information is usually startlingly accurate,

because the ISFJ has an exceptional memory about things that are important to their value

systems. It would not be uncommon for the ISFJ to remember a particular facial

expression or conversation in precise detail years after the event occurred, if the situation

made an impression on the ISFJ.

ISFJ’s have a very clear idea of the way things should be, which they strive to attain.

They value security and kindness, and respect traditions and laws. They tend to believe

that existing systems are there because they work. Therefore, they're not likely to buy

into doing things in a new way, unless they're shown in a concrete way why it’s better

than the established method.

ISFJ’s learn best by doing, rather than by reading about something in a book, or applying

theory. For this reason, they are not likely to be found in fields which require a lot of

conceptual analysis or theory. They value practical application. Traditional methods of

higher education, which require a lot of theorizing and abstraction, are likely to be a

chore for the ISFJ. The ISFJ learns a task best by being shown its practical application.

Once the task is learned, and its practical importance is understood, the ISFJ will

faithfully and tirelessly carry through the task to completion. The ISFJ is extremely

dependable.

The ISFJ has an extremely well-developed sense of space, function, and aesthetic appeal.

For that reason, they're likely to have beautifully furnished, functional homes. They make

extremely good interior decorators. This special ability, combined with their sensitivity to

other's feelings and desires, makes them very likely to be great gift-givers - finding the

right gift which will be truly appreciated by the recipient.

More so than other types, ISFJ’s are extremely aware of their own internal feelings, as

well as other people's feelings. They do not usually express their own feelings, keeping

things inside. If they are negative feelings, they may build up inside the ISFJ until they

turn into firm judgments against individuals which are difficult to change, once set. Many

ISFJ’s learn to express themselves, and find outlets for their powerful emotions.

Just as the ISFJ is not likely to express their feelings, they are also not likely to let on that

they know how others are feeling. However, they will speak up when they feel another

individual really needs help, and in such cases they can truly help others become aware of

their feelings.

The ISFJ feels a strong sense of responsibility and duty. They take their responsibilities

very seriously, and can be counted on to follow through. For this reason, people naturally

tend to rely on them. The ISFJ has a difficult time saying "no" when asked to do

something, and may become over-burdened. In such cases, the ISFJ does not usually

express their difficulties to others, because they intensely dislike conflict, and because

they tend to place other people's needs over their own. The ISFJ needs to learn to

identify, value, and express their own needs, if they wish to avoid becoming over-worked

and taken for granted.

ISFJ’s need positive feedback from others. In the absence of positive feedback, or in the

face of criticism, the ISFJ gets discouraged, and may even become depressed. When

down on themselves or under great stress, the ISFJ begins to imagine all of the things that

might go critically wrong in their life. They have strong feelings of inadequacy, and

become convinced that "everything is all wrong", or "I can't do anything right".

The ISFJ is warm, generous, and dependable. They have many special gifts to offer, in

their sensitivity to others, and their strong ability to keep things running smoothly. They

need to remember to not be overly critical of themselves, and to give themselves some of

the warmth and love which they freely dispense to others.

Dominant: Introverted Sensing

Auxiliary: Extraverted Feeling

Tertiary: Introverted Thinking

Inferior: Extraverted Intuition

thought

ISFJ’s have two basic traits which help define their best career direction: 1) they are

extremely interested and in-tune with how other people are feeling, and 2) they enjoy

creating structure and order, and are extremely good at it. Ideally, the ISFJ will choose a

career in which they can use their exceptional people-observation skills to determine

what people want or need, and then use their excellent organizational abilities to create a

structured plan or environment for achieving what people want. Their excellent sense of

space and function combined with their awareness of aesthetic quality also gives them

quite special abilities in the more practical artistic endeavors, such as interior decorating

and clothes design.

ISFJ’s place a great deal of importance on their personal relationships. They're generally

very giving and loving people, who place the needs of others above their own. They

sometimes have a problem with becoming overly emotionally needy, and with keeping

their true feelings hidden from others. They take their commitments very seriously, and

seek lifelong relationships. ISFJ’s are extremely dependable, and put forth a lot of energy

into keeping things running smoothly. They sometimes have difficulty saying "no" when

asked to do something, and therefore may be taken for granted.

inside

ISFJ’s are the homemakers, caretakers and facilitators of the world. Their strong sense of

duty, hard-working tendencies and ability to respond quickly to what is suitable to a

particular situation are great assets. With a dominant function that quickly grasps the

qualities inherent within the external world, and a secondary function that weighs such

perceptions against their value within this world, the ISFJ has a great talent for

discovering the aesthetic and essential qualities compatible with and relevant to a

particular real world situation. This means that, not only within the world of objects, but

also in their relationships with people, ISFJ’s are gifted with the ability to recognize and

understand the comfort and surroundings suitable to a secure and pleasing existence. And

they can do this with a decisiveness which might make others wonder if the ISFJ was not

in fact getting their answers from some form of intuitive understanding rather than what

is really a vast library of carefully related memory images and value judgments. An ISFJ

will always feel best when their world a place of quality and reassurance, both for

themselves and others. Success for an ISFJ means being able to fulfill a role providing

value for others and ordering their world in a way in which safety and security is

balanced against a genuine respect for the aesthetic and positive qualities of life.

As an ISFJ, you have gifts that are specific to your personality type that aren't natural

strengths for other types. By recognizing your special gifts and encouraging their growth

and development, you will more readily see your place in the world, and how you can

better use your talents to achieve your dreams.

Nearly all ISFJ’s will recognize the following characteristics in themselves. They should

embrace and nourish these strengths:

and feel good. This talent enables you to make your world reflect your inner self

and become a place of security and growth in which others can feel at ease too.

world and themselves. Your valuable input to their world comes back to you in

ways which aid your own personal development.

works for harmony and what does not. Your clear recognition of these things

gains you the confidence and respect of others.

the relationships between them. More than this, you also remember what was both

good and bad about these things. These skills show in your ability to give no

nonsense advice and aid to others

are trying to do their best, you will hold the line with them to the very end. You

see this as simply doing the right thing, but in fact it is a special virtue and makes

you one of the most worthy of partners and friends when the chips are down.

it is finished.

ISFJ’s who have a strongly expressed Extraverted Feeling function will find they also

enjoy these very special gifts:

satisfying solutions to both your own and others difficulties.

create to make things better or move things toward a valid human solution to a

problem

persons within it, enabling you to see ways of changing things for the better. In

this sense, you may be a powerful agent for social justice.

With any gift of strength, there is an associated weakness. The strong expression of any

function can overshadow others, whilst at the same time its own associated and

unexpressed inferior function can mine the unconscious mind and throw up annoying

resistances and unsettling emotions. We value our strengths, but we often curse and -

even more limiting to our potential development - ignore our weaknesses. To grow as a

person and get what we want out of life, we must not only capitalize upon our strengths,

but also face our weaknesses and deal with them. That means taking a hard look at our

personality type's potential problem areas.

ISFJ’s are kind, steady and responsible beings with many special gifts. I would like for

the ISFJ to keep in mind some of the many positive things associated with being an ISFJ

as they read some of this more negative material. Also remember that the weaknesses

associated with being an ISFJ are natural to your type. Although it may be depressing to

read about your type's weaknesses, please remember that we offer this information to

enact positive change. We want people to grow into their own potential, and to live happy

and successful lives.

Many of the weaker characteristics that are found in ISFJ’s are due to their dominant and

Introverted Sensing function overshadowing the rest of their personality. This generally

results in two notable effects: their Extraverted Feeling function is unable to balance their

sharply rendered inner perceptions with a sense of human value, whilst at the same time

these very perceptions often hint at strange associations and consequences which seem

always to hover darkly in the background of the world

In such cases, an ISFJ may show some or all of the following weaknesses in varying

degrees:

about the “correct” or “right” way to do things

world” by simply being who they are

ability to fit in with and support their own judgments

being aware of it

explanations

conspiracy theories

view of the world, or disapproval of their judgments

difficulty such judgments might cause others

survival oriented decisions

Nearly all of the problematic characteristics described above can be attributed in various

degrees to the ISFJ’s internally mapped and abstract view of the world not being

successfully coupled to an appropriate level of Extroverted feeling. Without this rational

external balance, the ISFJ’s opposing unconscious functions can wreak havoc upon the

order and sense of the ISFJ’s perceptions and ideas. ISFJ’s are usually stable, certain,

reliable and deft in their approach to life. But if unbalanced, they are likely to treat any

point of view other than their own with a kind of cold dismay, and if pressed hard will

tend to shut out the existence of problems caused by others differing attitudes and

opinions. If the ISFJ does not learn how to deal with the wide range of differing world

views they come into contact with, they can find themselves closed into a lonely little

corner of the world in which only their own feelings of safety and certainty are

maintained. This is a natural survival technique for the extreme ISFJ personality.

The main driver to the ISFJ personality is Introverted Sensing, whose function is to

define the properties of and locate and recognize the sometimes abstract and innate

qualities of and between the objects of the outer world. If an ISFJ’s picture of the world

is threatened by external influences, the ISFJ generally tries to shut such new information

out of their lives. This is totally natural, and works well to protect the individual psyche

from getting hurt. However, the ISFJ who exercises this type of self-protection regularly

will become closed within a small and ever decreasing circle of those family and friends

who do not actively disturb their increasingly narrow and rigid world view. They will

always find justification for their own inappropriate behaviors, and will always find fault

with the outside world for problems that they have in their lives. It will be difficult for

them to maintain close personal relationships because they will have a negatively

polarized and therefore limited ability to communicate outside of the box of their own

security needs.

It is not an uncommon tendency for the ISFJ to support their ideas and values by using

only the value judgments they make about the world and other peoples behavior.

However, if this tendency is given free reign, the resulting ISFJ personality is too selfcentered

to be happy or successful. Since the ISFJ's dominant function is Introverted

Sensing, they must balance this with an auxiliary Extraverted Feeling function. If the

ISFJ uses Extraverted Feeling only to serve the purposes of Introverted Sensing, then the

ISFJ is not using Extraversion effectively at all. As a result, the ISFJ does not sufficiently

recognize and sympathize with the way feelings affect the behavior of others in the world

to have a good sense of why things happen as they do. They see nothing but their own

perspective, and deal with the world only so far as they need to in order to support their

perspective. These individuals usually come across as somewhat judgmental and full of

fixed and often rather ambiguously polarized ideas about the world. Other people are

often surprised by the vehemence of their ideas and are usually unable to understand how

they came by them.

To grow as an individual, the ISFJ needs to focus on opening their perspective to include

a more accurate picture of the feelings and value judgments of others. In order to be in a

position in which the ISFJ is able to perceive and consider data that is foreign to their

internal value system, the ISFJ needs to recognize that their world view is not threatened

by the new information. The ISFJ must consciously tell himself/herself that emotional

affects in others are not unrelated to reality; that the feelings of others are also just and

valid within a wider and less rigorous vision of the world.

The ISFJ who is concerned with personal growth will pay close attention to their

motivation for deciding what is good and bad, right and wrong. Do they try to find the

feeling values of others in a situation? Or, do they value only those feelings which

support a personal idea or cause? At the moment when something is felt, is the ISFJ only

concerned with whether that feeling supports something they recognize as correct? Or is

she/he concerned with becoming truly empathetic? To achieve a better understanding of

others and the world in which they live, the ISFJ should try to put themselves into the

minds of others, to locate and recognize how they have come to feel the way they do,

before making judgments. They should consciously be aware of their tendency to discard

anything that doesn't agree with their carefully ordered concepts, and work towards

lessening this tendency. They should try to feel the way others would feel in situations,

without making personal judgments about the actual situations. In general, they should

work on exercising their Feeling in a truly extraverted sense. In other words, they should

use Feeling to locate the their true connections to and relationship with others for the sake

of gaining a wider perspective, rather than only allowing such feeling values to support

their own conclusions. The ISFJ who successfully feels things objectively may be quite a

powerful force for positive change.

Some ISFJ’s have difficulty fitting into our society. Their problems are often a result of

an inability to flow with what is, a too negative or correcting attitude which dismays

others, or unrealistic ideals and ideas about the world. These issues mostly stem from

using Extraverted Feeling in a diminished manner: the lack of a strong externally focused

value system allowing an often ambiguous and yet strongly defended world view which

has little relation to concrete reality to control the personality. An ISFJ who attempts to

feel and value the feelings of others for the sake of understanding the world around them,

rather than quickly deciding how they and they alone feel, will have a clearer, more

objective understanding of how society is dependant not only upon structure and correct

behavior, but also how human values make it just what it is and not something else

perhaps more desirable. He or she will also be more comfortable and less likely to

demand that the world and the behavior of others conform to some abstract code of being.

Such well-adjusted ISFJ’s will fit happily into our society. Unless you really understand

Psychological Type and the nuances of the various personality functions, it's a difficult

task to suddenly start to use Feeling in an unambiguous and totally extraverted direction.

It's difficult to even understand what that means, much less to incorporate that directive

into your life. With that in mind, I am providing some specific suggestions that may help

you to begin exercising your Extraverted Feeling more fully:

Take care to try and discover why others feel the way they do. Try to notice the

connections between their feelings and the way they see the world. Don’t immediately

compare your own value judgments about the world to theirs; simply accept that for them

this is a real and perfectly valid way of responding.

Think of those times and situations in your life when you felt misunderstood or

disregarded by others. Now try to understand how one or two other people would see the

situation. Don't try to assume they would judge as you do: "she would have to feel the

same way if that happened to her", or "he would change his tune if he saw things from

my point of view". Rather, try to understand how they would truly see the situation.

Would it be seen as a problem, or as an opportunity? Would it be taken seriously or

lightly? Try to determine their point of view without passing judgment or comparing it to

your own.

When having a conversation with a friend or relative, dedicate at least half of your time

to finding out how the other person feels about what they are describing. Concentrate on

really sensing their emotional state. Tell them how you feel and compare. Ask questions

about why they feel as they do.

Think of the people who are closest to you. As you think of each person, tell yourself

"this person has their own life going on, and they are more concerned with their own life

than they are with mine." Remember that this doesn't mean that they don't care about you.

It's the natural order of things. Try to visualize what that person is feeling right now.

What emotions are they enacting, what thoughts are they having? Don't pass judgment, or

compare their situation to your own.

Try to identify the personality type of everyone that you come into contact with for any

length of time.

1. Feed Your Strengths! Let your talent for recognizing harmony and balance spill

out into the world around you, show your gifts to the world. Allow yourself to

take opportunities to design, reorganize and rebalance things to make your home

and work environments better for yourself and others. Find work or a hobby

which allows you to realize these strengths.

2. Face Your Weaknesses! Realize and accept that some things are never going to

be how you would like them to be. Understand that other peoples feelings are

sometimes more important than whether they are right or wrong. Facing and

dealing with discord or differences in others doesn't mean that you have to

change who you are; it means that you are giving yourself opportunities to grow.

By facing your weaknesses, you honor your true self and that of others.

3. Discover the World of Others. Don't let yourself fall into the trap of thinking you

always know what is right for others. Open your heart to the possibility of

understanding that their true needs are something that must be discovered

through relationship, and recognition that their world might be very different, yet

just as valid as your own.

4. Don’t be too hasty. Try to let things settle before you make a judgment, allowing

others to discover the best for themselves while you feel your way into their way

of seeing things.

5. Look Carefully at the World. Remember, things are not always what they seem

on the surface. You might need to look deeper to discover the truth, particularly

when it seems you are sure of your first quick judgment. There are layers of

meaning and truth beneath everything.

6. Try to Let Others Take Some of the Load. By letting others help, you are not

letting things get out of control, but are validating their own need to be a part of

your life. Remember, it is better to guide another to see your point of view than

keeping them out of the picture.

7. Be Accountable to Others. Remember that they need to understand you and your

needs too. Express your feelings and reasons and let them become partners to

your goals.

8. Don’t Hem Yourself in. Staying in your comfort zone is self defeating in the

end. Try to make every day one where you get out and discover a little

something different about the world and others. This will broaden your horizons

and bring new ideas and opportunities into focus.

9. Assume the Best and Seek for it. Don't wait for others to live up to your

expectations. Every person has a goldmine of worth in them, just as every

situation can be turned to some good. If you let yourself believe this, you will

find yourself discovering ways to make it true for you.

10. When in Doubt, Ask For Help! Don't let your sense of self sufficiency leave you

on the horns of a dilemma or lead you into disaster. If you are uncertain of

something or someone then get input from others you trust.