I have a new mother-in-law. Well it’s actually still Janice but I see her quite differently.
If you were to ask Janice she would tell you without hesitation that she is an introvert but we have been spending a lot of time together recently and I am convinced she is extravert and not marginally either.
Is it possible that an individual wouldn’t know if they were introvert or extravert?
When I do workshops we test this and at least 50% of people get this wrong.
Remember what you are is determined by where you draw your energy. What I have observed recently about Janice is that she is energised by contact with people.
So where does the confusion stem from? Why does Janice see herself as an introvert?
Well it’s simply because she is a bit shy and the thought of new people and new situations make her anxious. Yes extraverts can be shy and they get anxious.
This can make life a little difficult for an extravert because the “need” to interact with people is always there. That’s where they get their energy.
A change in circumstances has thrown Janice into some new environments and new groups of people. She had no choice. Had she been given a choice she would not have done so. She would have stayed at home.
But you can clearly see that Janice is energised from the contact with new people.
Just because our psyche has certain needs doesn’t mean that we can easily meet our own needs. It’s not easy for Janice to meet new people.
Extraverts can be shy and introverts can be confident. These are just a couple of reasons that we have difficulty understanding what makes us tick.
The truth is that we don’t usually know what’s good for us. It’s hard to separate the needs of our psyche from what we want or don’t want to do.
