10 Things an INFJ Needs to Be Happy

It’s no secret that INFJs are the rarest MBTI type. The INFJ is also said to be one of the most misunderstood types. This makes sense given how few of us there are compared to other personalities.

Learning I’m an INFJ absolutely changed my understanding of myself for the better. Throughout my discovery, I’ve come to find there are a handful of things that I and other INFJs need to be happy.

I’m sharing ten of those things with you today!

A lot of alone time

INFJs are often very social in the right environments. If we’re with people we love or in a smaller group setting with people we connect with, we may even be mistaken for extroverts.

But the reality is all of that socializing is seriously draining for INFJs. As a result, we require a lot of time alone to charge up for social activities and recover from them after.

A heads up before socializing

Most introverts need a little warning before socializing, and this is especially true for INFJs.

If we’re mentally prepared to stay in and rest up, we won’t do well with having an unexpected visitor or a social event thrown at us at the last minute.

Without time to prepare, we often find ourselves frazzled and drained before the socializing even happens.

If you’re an INFJ, tell the people in your life how much notice you need before an event to be able to commit to it.

If you’ve got an INFJ in your life, ask how much time they need, and/or do everything you can to give them as much notice as possible. And don’t be offended if they pass on last-minute invites.

A plan

INFJs are future-oriented, so we need to have some idea of what’s coming next to be comfortable. The closer we are to our plan, the more concrete we like it to be.

For instance, we may want to have our day planned the night before. Then, a rough idea of our next month will look like. And then a general gist of where we want to be in a year (or five) from now.

For INFJs to continue moving forward, we need to have a decent understanding of what we’re working towards.

To help

It’s important to INFJs to be helpful and of service to both the people in their lives and their communities.

We like to be someone our friends and families can count on for emotional support (which we often excel at) and more practical help.

If you’ve had a bad day, INFJs are often happy to be your first call. If you need help moving, INFJs are the type to show up for you. It’s a role that’s essential to our personality and one we typically thrive in.

Boundaries

That said, we can’t be everything for everyone all the time. This is why boundaries are very important fo an INFJ to be happy.

If we find ourselves in a situation where we’re emotionally supportive to everyone we come across, or we have a lot of people in our lives who are in constant need of emotional support, we’re likely to find ourselves drained and burned out.

Same can be said if we try to offer more practical support as much as possible.

INFJs really do need downtime and alone time, to be our best (both for ourselves and our relationships). Without healthy boundaries, INFJs are inclined to take on way too much and be a shell of themselves.

Sometimes, the most helpful thing you can do (for both yourself and the other person) is guide the person in question to someone else in a better position to help than you.

If you’re an INFJ, here are some tips to setting healthy boundaries.

If your someone with an INFJ in your life, do them a solid and respect (and encourage!) the boundaries they put in place.

Deep conversation

INFJs loathe shallow small talk, but love to dig deep into meaningful, intense, and even abstract topics.

We don’t necessarily need this from every relationship in our life, but we need a few people we can really get into things with.

INFJs have a particularly deep and rich inner world and expressing the thoughts that come up is a key element of our happiness.

A creative outlet

And speaking of expressing our deep inner world, a creative outlet often plays a significant role in our happiness and understanding of ourselves.

Part of the reason INFJs are so good at understanding others and being emotionally supportive is because of our extroverted feeling function.

This basically means that INFJs have an easier time understanding external emotions to our own internal ones.

As a result, an external creative outlet (like writing, music, art, etc) can help INFJs get our emotions out and into a more external situation for us to process and understand. (At least, this is how I’ve always thought of things.)

Meaningful connection

It’s really important for INFJs to create meaningful connections with the people in their lives.

It’s nice when we have the same taste sense of style or like the same sports team as someone else, but that’s not the kind of thing that’s going to make an INFJ feel like the can fully trust and be real with someone.

INFJs need to be able to go deep with their friendships and relationships. They need to be able to talk about society, different world views, life and death, self-improvement, personal values and struggles, the meaning of life, etc.

We like to know what the people in our lives are going through so we can help, and in turn, feel more comfortable opening up about what we’re going through.

It’s not that we need to be deeply connected with someone on every issue that matters to us. We’re going to be pretty happy if we can have at least one friend to discuss each of our core topics with.

Additionally, this area can also mean having a meaningful connection in the arts.

Because INFJs are used to being misunderstood when we find a show, movie, character, song, lyric, painting, etc, that expresses an idea we’ve carried, it can be both life-changing and reaffirming.

Understanding

Because we’re such a rare type with a rare outlook, we’re very used to being misunderstood.

As a result, we need at least one person who really does get us. This may be another INFJ, or simply another type who’s put the effort in.

And if we can’t get one person who gets us completely, we can likely get by with a handful of people who all understand a different part of us.

Support

While INFJs crave to be truly understood, and often need some aspect of this in their closest relationships, most of us are used to navigating the world without this.

What we really need is support from the people in our lives.

We know we see the world differently. We know most of the time, our wants and needs are different from majority of the population.

Even if the people closest to us don’t always get where we’re coming from or why we need what we’re asking for, we need to be trusted and supported, not shamed or dismissed.

If we’re telling you we need something, or if we’re telling you something makes us exhausted/stressed/anxious/sad, etc, trust that it’s real for us, no matter how manageable it may be to you or most people. And help and support us when you can.

Looking for more in-depth tips on how to manage your introverted life?

If you want to dig a little deeper, check out the Introvert Life Guide!

This guide was designed to help you build the introvert life of your dreams. And it’s full of plenty of tips and tricks to help you manage the five biggest areas of your introvert life.

It will also help you embrace your introverted nature and build a life to help you thrive!

For more introvert life tips, check out the other introvert posts! And you can find more on INFJs here!

Sound off: What helps you be happier as an INFJ? Tell us about it in the comments!