Are you secretly the visionary INTJ personality type?

INTJ is one of 16 personality types in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. INTJ stands for introverted (in constant contact with the inner world), intuitive (abstract-thinking), thinking technical/fact-focussed), and judging (more controlled/organised lifestyle than flexible).

Sign you may be INTJ: Your thinking style is intensely visual and symbolic. INTJs intuit reality as a set of fractal patterns – every event part of a larger, often cosmically-scaled pattern. An INTJ undeterred by social expectations may be drawn to symbolic or esoteric imagery.

Sign you may be INTJ: You are constantly engaged in a project of self-transformation. Of all types, INTJs are most able to visualise their future ideal selves and then mould their reality around this new person/essence they want to embody and transform into.

Sign you may be INTJ: Your decisions are based on a vision of how the future will play out. Intuitive "knowings," hunches, symbolic insights and visions guide you -- your direction can change in an instant. Routine and practical day-to-day details and tasks may be draining.

Sign you may be INTJ: Your relationship with your senses is polarised. You may feel totally disconnected from your body and environment for very long periods of time and/or may, in stress, over-indulge your senses in pleasures such as food or sex.

Sign you may NOT be INTJ: If it is easy for you to create and debate about conjectures and hypotheses based on limited data, you may not be INTJ. An INTJ is more silent than combative, offering cautious opinions and hypotheses, and painstakingly finding the evidence to back it.

Sign you may NOT be INTJ: Emotional meaning is optional to a new endeavour. For an INTJ, their identity and personal feelings are attached to each new project. They can only do something when there is deep personal and/or cosmic meaning backing up everything they do.

Sign you may NOT be INTJ: Thinking of existential topics is something you can optionally engage in, before returning to “practical matters.” An INTJ cannot switch off their innate existential questioning, all of reality must converge into one symbolic understanding of reality.

Sign you may NOT be INTJ: You have a need to understand something outside of how it relates to you. INTJs are the centre of their own world – and the outside world is understood in relation to their goals, vision, and self-concept, in a “how do I get what I need?" way.

Bottom line: INTJ types are characterised by a need to engage in deep contemplation, self-creation and self-transformation. But it can be hard to type ourselves accurately, even after doing the MBTI test (we’re all biased)., so patience and introspection are necessary here.