How To Be Taken Seriously as an ENFP or INFP

How To Be Taken Seriously as an ENFP or INFP

Sticking with a decision as an ENFP (or an INFP)

I want to share a new approach to deciding on what you want to do, setting goals and taking direction, which will help increase the chances that people take you seriously.

This advice is not just for ENFPs and INFPs, but my hunch is it will ring particularly true for my fellow xNFPs who sometimes have a lot of ideas and not a lot of action. So let’s talk about this issue – How to be taken seriously as an ENFP or INFP.

I first filmed a version of this video for my dreamers’ community but decided, hey, I want to share this with the whole world. So here I am refilling it for you here.

Now the first thing you have to start doing differently is to commit first, then plan and talk with others. So often we think out loud, we brainstorm, we want to get feedback on something, maybe we think of a business we could do and we’re like, “Hey, Chris, what do you think about this?”, and then, you know, we share it with someone, or even worse, we’re kind of committed, like we actually want to do it. But we’re seeking someone to validate the concept. Sounds familiar?

So we’re sharing it with the random people in the lineup at Starbucks and assuming that their feedback or some help tell us if we should do this business. That is terrible in so so many ways.

First, the feedback you’re going to get is terrible. It’s not going to be aligned with getting you to your goal, and it’s going to kill all your excitement.

So if you do finally decide to do this thing, you’re probably not going to be nearly as excited or committed to it as if you commit first. Here’s the difference when you commit first, you think through what it is you really want to do. You write things down, you get it on paper, here is what I would love to do. I’m going to use an easy example here with the keto diet. I know some people apparently hate it, but Oh, well.

So approach number one, you hear this guy, Dan on YouTube talking about the keto diet, and you think, hey, that actually the things he talked about mental clarity and weight loss and energy, that would really help me and you’re like, oh, we’ll see, and then you go into work, and you bring it up to everyone, and you’re like, “I thought about maybe this keto thing!”, and then you get 10 different opinions, someone whose sister did it and suddenly fell off a cliff and someone else who had a great experience, and someone who read an article about it was actually about the Atkins diet, which is quite a bit different.

If you’re an ENFP you may be the leader in your group of trying new things of taking risks, and people sort of let you go out and see how you do them. So when you’re really committed to something, people get excited about it and want to support you. When you’re on the fence, and you say to them, “Hey, I’m thinking about doing this new thing…”, then they want to test you they want to see re you really committed and are you serious about it.

If you say you’re going to start a business, maybe they’ve thought about starting a business? If you’re not sure, then all their doubts, they’re going to bring them up and ask you, “Well, what about this? What about taxes? How do you figure out the corporation? What if you run out of money? What about bla bla bla…”, that’s what people do, but it’s not their fault.

It is your fault for how you present yourself and the level of commitment you go in with no at this stage, especially if you’re an ENFP or INFP personality type. Sometimes It’s hard to be taken seriously as an ENFP or INFP.

You may need to brainstorm, you maybe need feedback, need to chat with people. I have some of my best concepts come through conversations with people. Now, you need to choose your words carefully, you should tell people that you’re planning to do certain things and that you need their input, and that you want to brainstorm ideas and that you’re just speaking out loud. Learn to separate those things. Tell people that It’s not anything serious, It’s just you thinking out loud.

They’ll know that they shouldn’t take this seriously, and engage with you in a different capacity.

Now, the last part of this is setting timeframes. This is so so important if you want to be taken seriously. But also you actually want to achieve some things and get results.

You need to set longer timeframes for how long you stick to something. I’m going to go back to the keto diet. The keto diet, in this case, it’s such an easy example because I have so much experience meeting people as I’ve been travelling, and many of them were telling me that they’ve tried it for a week or two weeks and they didn’t feel good.

The first thing you read in any proper literature about the diet is the first-month sucks and you’re tired and drained as your body switches how it processes food. So you have to go in, like when I started it, I committed for multiple months, I basically committed that I go indefinitely on it, but I committed at least for three months, and the same thing happens with businesses. People go in with this, “I’m going to try it out for a few weeks.” type of mentality.

If you want to get successful in business, get that “try out first” sentence out of your dictionary.

If you want to create an amazing business for yourself go in thinking I will be stubborn like Rocky Balboa. Quit making excuses for at least one year, then consult with two to three coaches, wise friends, mentors, people with business experience to reassess if you are on track if you should quit.

But if you jump into working for yourself with the attitude of every day, I’ll reassess like I’ll just try it. And on Tuesday, if I feel like it’s not working, maybe I’ll not start this business. Or maybe I’ll start a different business. Or maybe I’ll go back and get a job, you’re going to fail.

Be taken seriously as an ENFP or INFP – 3 Tips to remember

So to sum it up, number one, commit to your outcome before you get started. Number two, commit to a timeframe where you will pursue without reevaluating your goal and number three, when you share this with other people, choose your words very carefully, and ask for their input on how to achieve your goal not whether or not your goal or outcome makes sense. That’s how you’ll be taken seriously as an ENFP or INFP.