Top Must-See INFP Careers to Avoid: This personality type holds a royal place among all 16 personality types identified by Myers-Briggs Theory. And here the INFP (4-lettered abbreviation) stands for Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, perception. Which tells us that they are really not suited for some of the careers paths out there.
These people are strongly influenced and driven by high values, are idealistic in their daily life, and have very creative and innovative minds. (You Can Read all about INFP Personality here). But being introverts these people gain paramount energy when alone. This means they love to be alone and this makes it hard for them to choose the perfect career.
However, their liking for solitude is often mistaken for shyness which is incorrect. They are confident but true introverts.
They always seek opportunities and rely on their intuition. For them what matters is the bigger picture and they can easily ignore the nitty-gritty details.
Often are career conscious and need to have a good grip on what any job or career is offering.
Being idealistic they can have high expectations from the career they opt for.
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Avoid These 7 Career Paths, If You Are INFP:
The main thing to keep in mind about these people is that they are strong advocates of the logic that everyone has their own life and have the right to spend it their way.
So, INFP’s can never be successful in careers that involve investigation, practicality, conventional nature, and order-driven tasks.
They have a deeply reflective nature which allows them to think out of the box so they must get into a career that demands such reflective abilities.
They have self-created high moral values and they won’t ever compromise over them. This makes them picky when choosing a career path.
Considering all these above-mentioned properties we have formulated the following list of 7 INFP careers to avoid.
Military Related Jobs:
Military Jobs are a big No for INFP’s and that is very logical.
How creative can you be in a military job?
Considering how these people love colors, innovation, and creativity, not even a speck of creativity. It’s all a boring, colorless life for any INFP.
All your creative powers, love for recreation, and innovation will go into the garbage if being an INFP you choose a career as strict as the military.
What makes this choice even worst for you here is the order-driven nature of this job.
The fact that you won’t have the choice to turn things your way and will have zero escape from obeying orders is what makes it an INFP career to avoid.
To some extent, this is an extraverted career path. The life of a soldier is often based on working with groups, battalions, and teams, which is not your comfort zone.
The unconventional and off-beat nature of an INFP and their ability to think outside the box is not something the military looks for.
So, their desire to solve issues by using imagination and creativity will be strongly rejected by the military.
Moreover, sticking to rules, politics, and bureaucracy is not an INFP’s comfort zone.
Law Jobs:
As colorless as military, this career is just another No for an INFP.
Their ability to advocate and fight for their opinions may misguide them into this career path.
But it needs to be understood that nothing about Law goes well with an INFP natured person.
Being a lawyer you would be asked to fight for causes you don’t agree with. And that is where the problem begins.
Their morality and inherent love for high values would prove to be a hurdle in their success path being a lawyer.
Because the integrity of an INFP will never allow them to fight for a cause they disagree with. These people can only stand for and advocate their opinions and causes they feel are right.
Moreover, the nature of Law is more inclined towards extroversion. A lawyer needs to be active and available to several different people.
These people can be completely different from what an INFP can tolerate. You might be dealing with prisoners, criminals, and even killers.
All of this won’t ever come naturally to an INFP cause they are emotionally sensitive people.
Such a career path will result in stress and depression thus putting the mental health of an INFP on steak.
Salesman Jobs:
When I think of an INFP the primary features that come to my mind are creativity and high moral values.
Both of which will go underrated if this personality opts for a career in sales. Making it even tougher for an INFP to aim for success in this career.
These people are never attracted to money or high social status, in fact, for them what matters is their internal satisfaction regarding whatever they do in life.
Being a salesman you need to praise even the not-so-good kinda products to make a sale and as per our research, no INFP will ever do that.
They would rather prefer sleeping empty-stomach than to make money in a way that hurts their inherent integrity.
This is one strong reason why we have added this career to our list of INFP careers to avoid and the list doesn’t stop here.
Sales is a very competent job. It is a job based on financial goals that will for sure put a person in competition with his/her colleagues thus encouraging conflicts.
All these factors make it a big No for an INFP. as they are peace-loving personalities and an atmosphere of competition with coworkers will deprive them of their internal peace.
Moreover, just like Law and military career paths, this is also an extrovert job.
Inter-personal skills of an INFP never comply to be in a career where they have to deal with new faces every single day.
Career Being A Police-Officer:
A police career is also a big NO for people with an INFP personality type.
We have a couple of reasons why these people are unfit for this profession. First of all, this is a very demanding job. You need to be physically and mentally tough to handle serious situations.
An art-loving, light-minded person as an INFP can hardly bear such a tough regime.
They are usually free birds and any order-driven career like the police can hinder their freedom.
This career can also prove to be a bit boring as the nature of this job revolves around collecting facts, gathering evidence of crimes, and investigating criminals that do not comply with the natural abilities of an INFP.
Moreover, this is a highly extrovert job.
Police officers need to be excellent with the communication skills which is not exactly opposite to the nature of an INFP but is certainly not in their comfort zone as well.
Dealing with criminals and mafia’s may lead to severe anxiety, depression, and other such issues in an INFP as they are mostly soft natured and peace-loving individuals.
Also, this career path demands zero artistic abilities or creative nature.
You can never expand and explore your artistic and innovative abilities in this type of career path.
Hence this profession is not suitable for an INFP.
Engineering Jobs:
As good as they are with their artistic set of abilities, equally poor are they in technical and mechanical stuff.
You can say that these people have a special affiliation with colors, bright notions, and ideas. So, naturally, they will find the world of technical and mechanical specialties boring, dull, and monotonous.
Engineering instructions, technical manuals, assembling, and disassembling of machines and electronics are all not interesting for an INFP.
Mostly, INFP’s are terrible at maths. You won’t find many who are interested to invest their energies in maths and stats.
Whereas, for an engineer, it is of prime importance to be excellent with his maths skills, only then can he succeed in his career.
This is one reason why engineering is not a cool choice for this particular personality type.
All of the above-mentioned issues with this career make it a monotonous and gloomy career path for an INFP.
This path will surely drain them of their natural abilities and tendencies thus should be avoided at all costs.
Electrician Jobs:
Again being an electrician is also not compatible with the natural tendencies of an INFP.
The basic job of an electrician is installing, monitoring, and maintaining the electrical power, communications, lighting, and control systems in homes and workplaces.
This job demands one’s expertise in reading blueprints, technical diagrams, and complete knowledge about all of this electrical stuff.
No INFP will enjoy doing all of this.
Not only is this job boring dull and monotonous for an INFP but also is a freelance kind of profession.
This makes it even difficult for these people as they would never prefer freelancing due to its extravert nature.
Moreover, all the natural creativity of an INFP will run down the drain as this job demands working on set electrical and technical rules.
You cannot bring any innovation in designing or creating circuits as it can be a big risk.
Being an electrician you will have to work with different people on an everyday basis which requires you to be extravert and a very friendly natured person. This also is out of an INFP’s comfort zone.
All these factors make it a very unsuitable profession for an INFP.
Auditor Related Jobs:
Being an auditor or accountant is all about finance and financial records.
Did we mention that finance is a field 180 degrees opposite to the natural interests of an INFP?
These people are least attracted to money, fame, and social status and hence will least enjoy a career path that is all about money.
INFP’s are not very good in analytical skills and an accountant needs excellent analytical skills to figure out issues with documentation etc.
In such a case, even if an INFP gains knowledge and pushes himself to be a good accountant all his natural tendencies will utterly be neglected.
His creative mind will stay untouched and unused as he prepares and examines financial records.
Moreover, the math skills of an accountant/ auditor need to be on point but in the case of an INFP, there is almost a complete No towards maths because maths is not their forte.
This is also a slight extrovert career as an accountant needs to humbly listen to his clients, understand their issues, and help them in solving their problems.
Does that comply with an introvert person?
Certainly not.
So, all of these above-mentioned areas clarify why we have this career on our list of INFP careers to avoid.
Effects of Career on an INFP personality:
This personality is one of the most creative personalities which makes them ideal for artistic jobs.
But it is not that simple, not only are they introverts but also are very passionate about defending and advocating their ideas and opinions.
So when in the wrong profession or among people with different opinions, you can better imagine how hard it can get for not only an INFP but also their surroundings.
These people are highly sensitive and won’t tolerate much when it comes to being critiqued or judged for their creative opinions.
However, they are strong advocates of giving people the right to share their judgments and opinions.
Despite the confidence to work well with others they tend to stay alone in their comfortable space. This helps their creativity to flow in a more natural and free manner.
This is one reason why they are introverts
They are not much fond of following the footsteps of past generations or sticking to traditions. Rather, they like to bring innovation by carving their destinies.
So, anything orthodox can result in a disturbed and stressed out INFP.
These people are well suited for jobs such as
Fine arts, graphic designer, film editor, photographer, physiotherapist, and chiropractor, etc.
But what is more important to know is that what particular careers should they entirely avoid?
After hours of research on this personality type, we have formulated this list of some INFP careers to avoid.
This list will help you take a glance at the bigger picture of these careers concerning this particular personality type.
Conclusion:
These people known as The Healers are slightly hard to understand they are introverts yet know how to deal with people.
Although being introverts yet they still have loads of love and passion towards their fellow beings and are therefore called the healers.
Are known for artistic minds and creative opinions but can hardly stand any technical or mechanical field.
They are idealists and have their little world of idealistic imaginations which they strongly protect and guard. Due to this very reason they often have high expectations from life.
Are always keen about possibilities but their high core values make them choosy with the opportunities they get in life.
All of it makes this personality an interesting yet hard to understand persona type. This means it is even more critical for these people to step into the right field and right career.
Otherwise, they can end up confused, depressed, and unsatisfied.
Hopefully, this article will help an INFP to grasp a good insight into what career paths he should avoid and why.