Enthusiasts - ?Always look on the bright side of life'.



ENFPs are energetic individuals who pursue their interests with great drive and enthusiasm. As they like to share their enthusiasms with others, ENFPs are often perceived as inspirational and can be good at motivating those around them.

ENFPs abhor routine and get bored very easily. They value spontaneity, variety and room for manoeuvre. As a result ENFPs are usually unconventional. They can spend their lives in one career but it more common for them to move from one interesting project or organisation to another. They are often high risk-takers and entrepreneurial by nature.

Their unconventional approach together with their energy and enthusiasm means ENFPs can be stimulating company. They generally have a strong sense of humour and their highly developed social skills means they find it easy to make friends.

An ENFP’s favourite, or dominant, function is intuition which they prefer to use in the extravert world. In effect, this means ENFPs love talking about meaning or possibilities for innovative projects. They spend much of their time telling other people about their pet theories on life, sharing their observations about what is really going on or engaging others in discussions about “why” such as such is the case.

ENFPs have a preference for using feeling in their interior world. It is when they retreat into themselves that they evaluate, consult their values, make decisions and plan various courses of action. ENFPs do not have a great need to tell other people about their values yet these personal values tend to inform everything that ENFPS do or consider important.

ENFPs see their role in life as understanding what is really going on and then improving on it in some way. The changes ENFPs seek are usually ambitious and they are not content with tinkering about at the edges. However, unlike ENTPs who may pursue changes which have little direct affect on people, ENFPs are driven to improve the world for their fellow human beings. ENFPs are essentially idealists who want to make the world a better place to live and work. They are usually very optimistic types of people.

ENFPs are not scared to see themselves as part of what they may need to change. But they are generally less confident than their ENTP cousins and so they are not quite as ‘gung ho’ about putting themselves in new situations which will require them to use new or untested skills. Their fears here are less to do with denting their ego than the desire not to let others down. ENFPs, however, are also very sensitive to what others think about them.

The combination of intuition and feeling in ENFPs often means they make good creative writers who can write with great sensitivity about human experience. In fact, ENFPs are often very talented, versatile people who can turn their hand to just about anything they want to.

Many ENFPs find it easy to develop good social skills. Their intuition combined with feeling mean they are very good at picking up non-verbal clues from others and they manage to put others at their ease. However, it is precisely this ease and charm which other types can sometimes find difficult to take. If ENFPs are not careful they can overdo the friendliness and appear to others overly familiar or even superficial.

ENFPs can send out mixed messages to others. Although they usually have little need to talk in depth to others about their values, they usually come across to others as warm, supportive people. However, when it comes down to it, ENFPs are motivated more by their independence and by ideas and possibilities than they are by their people-centred values. Their pursuit of the new, the interesting and the exciting can sometimes lead them to let other people down.

Of all the types ENFPs find organisation the hardest to master. Their brain is so preoccupied with abstract ideas and possibilities that order and practical arrangements are a major challenge. Unless, the ENFP has trained him/herself to be methodical in their daily practices, it is not uncommon for ENFPs to feel their life might suddenly spin out of control. They know intuitively that their scant attention to whether car lights have been turned off, or where keys and tickets have been placed could at any moment become a major challenge for them. Most ENFPs as they get older become so aware of their potential weakness in this area that they become frequent (and irrational) checkers of tickets, money, passports etc.

Ultimately success in life for ENFPs depends on using their introverted feeling to keep their intuition within useful bounds. It is crucially important for ENFPs to stop squandering their energy by pursuing too many different things. They must use their feeling judgment more to discriminate better between an interesting idea and something which is worthwhile pursuing. They must also cultivate enough J skills for their projects to bear fruit.

ENFP overview

Words to describe ENFPs

energetic, enthusiatic, sociable

innovative, inspiring, creative

curious, empathetic, autonomous

flexible, spontaneous, perceptive

optimistic, versatile, expressive

Careers attractive to ENFPs

Counselling, social work, teaching, art, marketing, journalism, writing, science, the ministry, music.

Needs at work

Encouragement, validation and support

Room for manoeuvre/variety

Shared goals

May need help with organisation

Anticipated work/team strengths

Motivating others to do things differently.

Supporting others’ development.

Finding new and different ways to do tasks.

Energising team mates.

Being aware of what people need to do their best work.

Brainstorming.

Potential problem areas

May not complete tasks or pay enough attention to important details.

May become bored by ideas and projects before they have got off the ground.

May procrastinate.

May be overly sensitive about criticism or other people’s views and opinions.

May have poor time management or organisational skills.

Likely areas for improvement

Letting go of interesting ideas sooner and concentrating more on one or two projects which are more likely to be successful.

Doing more preparation and relying less on “the seat of the pants”.

Paying less attention to other people’s views of them.

Being more independent-minded and assertive.

Learning to be more methodical and systematic in their day to day organisation and not allowing themselves to become side tracked.

Common relationship Issues for ENFPs

ENFPs show caring by paying quality attention to others’ views in conversation.

ENFPs like others to give really high quality attention to their ideas and to be really appreciative of them and their efforts.

ENFP Type Dynamics

Dominant – intuition – extraverted

Auxiliary - feeling - introverted

Tertiary - thinking

Inferior - sensing

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© Carol Craig

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