How to Use the MBTI as a Tool for Personal Growth

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality assessment system constructed by two Americans— Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, who were inspired by the book Psychological Types by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.

The sisters felt the book was too complex for the general public, and therefore tried to organise the Jungian cognitive functions to make the concepts more accessible.

This post is not to debate the validity of the MBTI as a personality assessment tool. There are multiple schools of thought regarding this.

The purpose of this post is to show you the means to use this assessment as a tool for personal growth rather than as a way to confirm your personal biases.

The MBTI can help you understand your strengths, weaknesses and preferences. With proper understanding of cognitive functions, it can help you develop a well-rounded personality that can thrive in uncomfortable circumstances.

If you think of life as a game, the MBTI is an effective means to help you max out your stats and unlock your hidden potential.

Why Use the MBTI Instead of Personality Systems Like the Big 5?

This is a valid question.

Other personality systems, the most prominent being the Big 5 rely on generic descriptions of a handful of metrics like: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism etc.

Because they tend to score people on these metrics on a sliding scale instead of assigning them binary characteristics as in the MBTI system (eg. Extraversion vs Introversion), systems like the Big 5 are more accepted in the academic world. 

However for all practical purposes, there is no way to objectively self-improve using such a system.

The only insight one can glean from the Big 5 would be to either increase or decrease the intensity of the measured parameters. It is too subjective to be of any tangible benefit for the purpose of self development.

The MBTI system on the other hand can enlighten individuals on their dominant cognitive functions, what their default way of thinking tends to be, how gaps in their personality influence their decision-making.

Knowledge about shadow functions can help in conscious improvement of multiple dimensions of personality in a micro manner, which can’t be achieved in a surface-level macro-system like the Big 5.

In short, while systems like Big 5 are a good way to get a general overview of your personality, in order to identify specific weak spots you need a more elaborate system like the MBTI.

How NOT to Use the MBTI

Before we get into ways to use the MBTI, let’s first deal with how to not use it or rather, what to not use it for.

1. Using MBTI as a Rigid Descriptor of Your Traits

The MBTI is not a binary predictor of personality like many popular testing websites will have you believe. This is a major reason for the tool’s pseudoscientific status among many academics.

In fact, Carl Jung did not see the type preferences (such as introversion and extraversion) as dualistic, but rather as tendencies— both are innate and have the potential to balance.

When big corporations use MBTI to screen employees, this is a huge negative aspect of it. These teams are better off using the Big 5 for a general overview of the candidate instead.

The MBTI should be used only under guidance of an expert, for personal development of employees at a later stage.

2. Finding Your MBTI Type Using a Questionnaire

MBTI types are primarily determined by their constituent cognitive functions, the expressions of which in an individual's personality, are subjective in nature.

Questionnaires like the popular 16-personalities test online, oversimplify and narrow down types to the crude description of four letters (eg. ENFP, which stands for Extraverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Perceiving)— which again is derived from answers to binary questions, that fail to analyse important nuances like cognitive functions. 

The ONLY way to accurately find your MBTI type is through consultation with an expert or by studying the system thoroughly on your own.

3. Blaming Your MBTI Type Instead of Taking Responsibility for Your Actions

This is akin to blaming your sun-sign or moon-sign for having anger issues.

Such behaviour is so common that it has led to MBTI being equated with the horoscope in academic circles. 

These tendencies are also indicative of a fixed mindset (wherein people believe their abilities to be unchangeable) as opposed to a growth mindset (wherein people believe in their ability to learn and change for better).

How to Use the MBTI as a Tool for Personal Growth

1. Identify Your MBTI Type Correctly

Stay away from questionnaire based typing websites and resources. For accurate results, consult with an expert. You can book a call with me for a thorough analysis of your type indicator.

You can explore the entire MBTI system by yourself and learn to identify types correctly. This is a lengthy process. Also, experience plays a big role in being able to type people accurately, and many who have the knowledge of MBTI fail to apply it correctly in real life.

If you absolutely must use a questionnaire based typing system, take the test on multiple websites. Read the descriptions provided to you and figure which one resonates most with you.

Remember to be honest with your responses and analysis. Your answers and your type description shouldn’t reflect who you’d like to be. They should reflect the person you already are.

2. Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Once you have your type indicator, look up the cognitive functions for your type. There are 8 cognitive functions for each type located in order of preference for your personality.

No cognitive function is superior to another but it is the usage of the function that determines its utility.

The top function is called the primary or the dominant function. This is the function you feel the most at ease with. Eg., An ENTJ or an ESTJ has Te (Extraverted Thinking) as their dominant function. Such individuals thrive on setting goals and working relentlessly towards them. They love to-do lists and organising their external world.

While it can serve you well, relying too much on your dominant function alone can wreak havoc in areas of your life which demand a different skillset.

As Abraham Maslow said:

The top four cognitive functions make up your main function stack. Among these your first two functions are the strongest and come most naturally to you. 

The functions from 5th to 8th form your shadow. These are the functions most distinct from your default state of being but also contain the most potential for growth.

3. Understand the Synergy Between Different Cognitive Functions

There are certain principles that determine how the different functions interact in your cognitive stack. Eg., in times of distress, people tend to loop between their first and third cognitive functions.

This creates a vicious cycle.

The only way out of such a cycle is to consciously explore activities that engage the second or auxiliary cognitive function.

Eg., In distressed or unhealthy ISTPs, a vicious loop can start between Ti (Intraverted Thinking) and Ni (Intraverted Intuition), wherein a generally logical and critical thinking person starts indulging in a doom-and-gloom thinking pattern. They constantly start projecting negative future outcomes and justify these outcomes with internal logic. This cycle is never-ending until the ISTP engages their auxiliary or second function i.e. Se (Extraverted Sensing).

When the ISTP starts participating in the external world which engages their physical senses, it breaks the vicious loop. What looping looks like differs based on your type indicator.

Similarly, multiple other synergies exist between the functions. You must learn them to identify negative patterns in your behaviour.

It is only once we are aware of such negative patterns, that we can take action towards betterment.

4. Identify Areas in Your Life You Wish to Improve

If you have read this post till here, you are someone who is serious about personal growth. In that case, you must identify (if you haven’t already,) areas in your life which, if improved, could drastically elevate your sense of fulfilment.

Once you have identified these areas, learn how your cognitive stack (order of cognitive functions) influences your performance in these areas.

Oftentimes, a poor outlook in lagging areas is due to an over-reliance on your dominant function coupled with under-developed lower functions.

5. Learn More About Your Weaker Cognitive Functions

As a general tendency, we tend to devalue the functions that lie lower in our cognitive stack. Some people even shun them as useless.

A highly logical thinker may see no point in emotions, and may even consider them a hindrance to decision-making.

A master in people’s emotions will read any social situation accurately and be able to influence crowds, while the same person may consider overly logical thinking as cold and detrimental to harmony.

The reality however is that depending on the situation, either form of decision-making can be beneficial or detrimental. But in order to thrive in situations furthest to your comfort zone, you must strengthen your weaker functions.

6. Develop a Game Plan

In your comfort zone, you operate using your dominant functions. But growth happens outside the comfort zone.

Once you have decided on the areas of life you want to improve in and have learnt more about your weaker functions, it’s time to make a plan. You must consciously create opportunities where you rely on your weaker functions.

These opportunities won’t happen on their own. You have to seek them out.

If you’re a go-getter who’s always chasing after external goals but you’d like to develop a more vivid internal self, you have to create time in your busy schedule for that. This may look like time set aside for daily meditation and introspection.

Likewise, if you’re a mechanical thinker who wishes to get better at navigating social relationships, you have to put yourself in situations where you’re meeting more people.

7. Evaluate. Improve. Reiterate.

None of this will feel natural at first. In fact it might feel awkward and uncomfortable. But that’s the whole point.

After every session, take time to reflect and evaluate your experience, and figure out what you could have done better. Note down any learnings. Next time apply those new learnings.

Using your weaker functions will never become second nature to you. It will always take conscious effort.

But working on them over time will give you the confidence to tackle situations outside your comfort zone. 

Final Words

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is one of the most effective tools for maximising personal growth. Instead of treating your personality type as a label to justify your shortcomings and reinforcing your inherent biases, use it to learn more about yourself.

And using this knowledge, unlock abilities which you have assumed so far to be beyond your reach.