As most of my reader’s know, I’m a super introvert. Understanding that part of my personality has been essential in how I practice self-care and also how I run my business. We’ve all taken the Myers-Briggs personality test to see what kind of personality type we have. I always fall between an INFP and an INFJ, I guess I can’t make up my mind as to whether I judge or perceive. Here’s what this means:
(E) or (I) – Introversion or Extraversion
Introverts like being by themselves and get tired when they’re around groups of people. Extroverts like social activities and feel energized by them.
(S) or (N) – Observant or Intuitive
Observant people are very practical and tend to lean toward set schedules and habits. Intuitives are open-minded and curious and are swayed by how they feel about things.
(T) or (F) – Thinking or Feeling
Thinkers are not so open with their feelings and tend to prefer logic over feelings. Feelers are sensitive and easily express their emotions.
(J) or (P) – Judging or Perceiving
Judgers are decisive and organized and love predictability. Perceivers are good at improvising and flexible.
Here’s how to practice self-care for your personality type!
I’ve included some self-care activities as well as a few gifts that compliment your personality type.
ISTJ
ISTJs are the most popular personality types. These are people who value logic, duty, and working hard. Quiet and serious they tend to put family and responsibilities first. When they say they’re going to do something they get it done and they place a huge value on loyalty and honesty.
Self-Care: Create good boundaries in your life. Because you are so responsible, other people can take advantage of that and shift their responsibilities onto you. Stop taking the responsibilities of other people onto yourself. Also, make a commitment when it comes to taking care of yourself.
Gifts: The Self-Love Workbook to plan and schedule your self-care. Logic-based games or puzzles.
ISFJ
Quite and friendly with a great concern for others. ISFJs are known as the “Mom” friend. They have their lives together, they give great advice from a logical place but they can also understand your feelings. They make great advocates and often see helping others as part of their purpose in life.
Self-Care: ISFJs are in touch with their feelings but they have difficulties expressing them so get in touch with your feelings! Learn how to practice emotional self-care and feel your feelings in a healthy way. Allow yourself to bend sometimes. You don’t like change and this can lead to you stubbornly staying in a situation that isn’t good for you.
Gifts: Sand Labyrinth Kit or a MomLife Coloring Book
INFJ
INFJs are the advocates of the world. They are very compassionate and have a lot of dreams about how the world should be, they don’t just dream though, they have the drive to act on making the world a better place.
Self-Care: You’re a sensitive little bean and that means that you take criticism to heart. Work on keeping your inner voice positive and loving with the way that you talk to yourself. Keep an eye on your burn-out levels. Helping others is such a great thing to do, but remember to turn it back on yourself and take care of you.
Gifts: Tea Gift Set or Calm the F*ck Down Coloring Book
INTJ
INTJs are brilliant minds. They are very intellectual and ambitious and enjoy the success of getting to the top of their field. They’re incredibly good at strategy and have a huge thirst for knowledge. They often love reading books that actually teach them something useful or require them to use their intellect.
Self-Care: Learn how to take breaks. Your drive and ambition can take over your life, so much so that you forget to take a step back and do something that’s not goal related.
Gifts: Star Wars Chess set or a Hogwarts 3D puzzle.
ISTP
Curious ISTPs love taking things apart just to put them back together again. They love observing and figuring out how things work. Seeing is believing to them and they love to examine things that they can feel with their hands. They’re very good at making things and tend to move from one project to another.
Self-Care: Find something new to do with your hands. Grow things, start a new artistic hobby like knitting or playing an instrument. Anything that you can do with your hands is a great way to engage your mind.
Gifts: Build Your Own Catapult or an Indoor Gardening Kit
ISFP
Adventurous ISFPs quite and friendly and really good about letting other people be themselves. They are usually artists and they love coloring their world to be exactly the way that they want it. They’re somewhat unpredictable and love exploring and experimenting. They also tend to be ambiverts, which means they can come off as extroverted but they actually recharge by being alone.
Self-Care: You can become easily stressed out and because you’ve got the heart and soul of a poet you can be really sensitive. Learn how to self-soothe. When you’re upset, go through the list of things that make you feel better instead of drawing out those unhappy feelings.
Gifts: Weighted Blanket for anxiety or Watercolor Paint Set
INFP
INFPs like to see the good in everything and everyone. They are great mediators and writers and they enjoy exploring the feelings of themselves and others. They come across as shy and calm, but once you get to know them, you realize that there’s a lot of passion bottled up inside of them about certain topics.
Self-Care: Remember to take care of yourself. You are a people pleaser and you love to give to other people. Remember that self-care isn’t selfish and you are allowed to take a step back and take care of yourself as much as you take care of other people.
Gifts: The Year of the Introvert or Introvert Doodles
INTP
INTPs are often skeptics and this gives them an analytical nature. They like for everything to have a why and a reason. They’re scientific but can also be quite creative. INTPs are really good at seeing connections between seemingly unrelated things. They’re dreamers and philosophers but they also allow themselves to see the logical and scientific aspects of those things.
Self-Care: Believe in yourself. You are so open to new ideas and alternative theories that it’s hard for you to commit to a “right way” which can cause you to second guess yourself. Focus on getting more in-touch with your intuition and listening to your inner voice.
Gifts: Virtual Reality System or Build Your Own Robot
ESTP
ESTPs are active and energetic and generally the life of the party. They want to be the center of attention and love making other people laugh. ESTPs want to get out there and do things instead of philosophizing and going over theories. They learn best through doing and are spontaneous and tend to leap before they look.
Self-Care: Learn to be okay being alone. It’s great to be social and fill that need to be around other people, but it’s also really important for you to have one-on-one time with yourself where you can spend time doing your favorite hobbies.
Gifts: Mobile Phone Photo Printer or party games like Cards Against Humanity
ESFP
ESFPs are outgoing and enthusiastic. You will never be bored around them. They like working with other people to make things happen and they make work fun. They easily adapt to new people and environments. They’re also the ones you’ll find dancing and singing in public because that’s the kind of person they are.
Self-Care: Learn how to deal with conflict and how to say ‘no’. You’re all about fun and that means that it’s hard for you to rock the boat because you want everyone around you to be happy as well. Work on learning that it’s okay to stick up for yourself.
Gifts: Portable Karaoke Machine or Dance Dance Revolution
ENFP
ENFPs are free spirits. They are warm and imaginative and they see all of life’s possibilities. Their enthusiasm for ideas is often infectious, as are their personalities. They love making social connections and enjoy it not because it gives them any sort of standing, but because they enjoy emotional connections and meaningful conversations.
Self-Care: Stop letting stress control your life. If you’re constantly overthinking things or worrying about other people, you aren’t making the most of your life. Figure out how to relieve stress. If being stressed out overwhelms you to the point of abandoning your responsibilities, work on planning things out.
Gifts: De-stress Essential Oils or Wisdom Cards
ENTP
ENTPs love to talk about and debate intelligent topics, which is why they are known as the debaters. They love intellectually stimulating conversations and are outspoken about the things that they believe in. They enjoy challenges and figuring out how to do things in different ways and they make great devil’s advocates.
Self-Care: Be still and listen. It’s time to embrace quiet and stillness and see what gifts are there for you. You don’t have to always be talking all the time, you don’t have to fill your space with sound constantly. Just be and listen.
Gifts: The Best Bar Trivia Book or Heated Travel Mug
ESTJ
ESTJs are great at managing other people and being in charge. They are practical and realistic and they are great at organizing things and groups of people. They take pride in bringing people together whether it be families or communities. ESTJs feel comfortable with order and predictability.
Self-Care: Move out of your comfort zone. Try to go out and do something that scares you. Also, have compassion for yourself, you judge yourself too harshly.
Gifts: Games you can play with a group or a cookbook.
ESFJ
ESFJs are caring and social people who are always ready to help others. They love to be providers and are very sensitive to the needs of other people and they always try to meet those needs. ESFJs like when things are harmonious and going smoothly. They often tend toward being one of the “popular” people as others are just drawn to them.
Self-Care: Stop worrying about what other people think of you. Do your thing, allow yourself to step away from the mainstream if it’s what you want. You don’t have to constantly be thinking about your “image” or what looks good.
Gifts: Balance + Harmony Candle or Himalayan Salt Lamp
ENFJ
ENFJs help other people to grow and see their own potential. They are warm and empathetic and this makes them great leaders because they are able to bring out the best in their teams. They are ambitious, but more for others and the outcome, than ambition for the sake of achieving something for themselves.
Self-Care: Remember that you can’t fix other people. ENFJ’s have a habit of wanting others to do better. This makes them great teacher’s and coaches, but they must remember they can’t do the work for other people.
Gifts: Motivational Coffee Mug or Crochet Mug Warmer
ENTJ
ENTJs are stubborn but it works in their favor. They are bold and imaginative and they make wonderful leaders. They are a good mix of being able to see logic but also being able to think outside the box. ENTJs have a very much “My way or the highway” way of thinking.
Self-Care: Let go of your need for control and go with the flow sometimes. You can’t control everything, and trying to force life to bend to your will 24/7 can be exhausting. Allow yourself to step away from work and enjoy life.
Gifts: Mogul Box or Boss Lady Travel Mug
As a solid ISTJ, I definitely notice the people in my life subtly shifting some of their responsibilities to me. “Oh can you remind me about this on this day *because your memory is so much better than mine* ” or straight up assuming I will do the prep work for our plans / activities can be very frustrating and adds stress to my life. I’m over here like Hello! write down your own damn reminder because that’s what I will need to do to remind you!
I am learning the value that saying no has on my mental health! Some people don’t expect or accept a simple “no thank you.” or “no I won’t be able to.” but I just stay firm and polite. I don’t owe anyone a reason!
Thanks for sharing!
Good for you! It’s so uncomfortable when you’re first starting out but it gets easier.
I am an ISFP and this fits me quite well. I am still working on that self-soothing bit!
It’s a life-changer!
I reeeeeeaaaaallllly need to take this test again lol!!! I’ve done it before but never put too much weight on it. I love this idea though!!
I’m different things at different times too, lol.
I love how you embrace introvertism!
In the past, I was pressured to be more social, even by so-called “experts”. But the thing is, that’s not me. It was never me.
Thank you for encouraging me to be myself!
Most definitely! Embracing your introversion for what it is instead of a “fault” or “character flaw” is a life-changer!
This was a great piece! My personality is an ENFP for sure! Loved this content idea
Thank you so much, Amy!
such great information, self care is so imporatant
It really is!
This was so true about my type!!!
I’m glad!
Love this post! Your page layout is also AMAZING!
Thank you!!! :)))
This was a good read and I am not sure which one fits me the best it would be hard to say, I am all over the place.
I sometimes feel that way too!
I loved this! I am constantly thinking about personality types (mostly to understand myself and for career exploration) and the self-care description for ENFJ fit me to a tee. Thanks for the insightful read!
Thanks for reading!
Yes! This is so right! I’m an ISTJ and I always put others before me and say ‘yes’ anytime I’m asked to do anything. I HAVE to make more of a commitment to myself and set aside time for self-care.
Yes!!! <3 <3 <3
This is such a good idea! ISTJ over here :)