ENFP opens LinkedIn to look up one person, discovers three career possibilities, has an identity crisis, drafts a manifesto in their head, then reposts something about following your own path — all in five minutes.
Your ENFP gift for self-discovery gets swept up in the FOMO tornado of LinkedIn, and you start confusing self-discovery with career strategy. But a job does not have to be the place where all your interests, values, talents, relationships and ambitions finally converge.
For much of history, public identity was narrow and prescribed, especially for women. Look at Rembrandt’s syndics: these men are being painted in their public roles. Their occupation tells us something important about them, but nobody imagines it tells us everything.
During the 20th century was to give more and more to work in exchange for the promise of our jobs expressing every part of us. But that will never be the exchange you get. Your job will never be big enough to be your identity. It is simply one public arena where you can get very good at something valuable.
This makes ENFPs especially vulnerable to asking the wrong question: Is this job really me? A better question is: Will doing this job for two years make me unusually good at something other people need? The first question sends you back into yourself. The second sends you out into the world.
ENFPs are especially vulnerable to the idea that careers are discovered rather than built because you can see so many possible versions of yourself. But your identity is what you discover throughout your life. Your career is something you build while you’re doing it.
You don’t need to know whether something is your calling before you start. You need enough interest to get moving, enough talent to improve, and enough demand that someone will keep paying you while you get better.
Recognize LinkedIn for what it is: a bid to convince you that a complete profile is a complete you. Resist that.
The ENFP irony is that you become happier when you stop demanding that work tell you who you are. You already know how to explore yourself. Choose work where getting better at it keeps showing you something new about yourself.
The best careers for ENFPs make mastery part of self-discovery.
Again, this rings true to me. Recently when I was travelling for work I was watching terrestrial TV in the hotel room one evening-- something I never do at home-- and there was this show about the dispatchers who prioritise the emergency calls that come in and send the ambulances out based on severity and proximity. I asked ChatGPT, could I do that job? It is not a job I'd even thought of before, but suddenly! The possibility! Luckily (I guess?) ChatGPT told me: you could probably do it, but you'd soon get bored.