Possible to break introversion?

[badger055]

I'm an istp 7 so I have the 7s need for a variety of experiences clashing against my introversion. My introversion is way stronger than my 7 unfortunately. If I have a choice of going out and doing something or screwing around on the Internet I choose the Internet most of the time. Doing stuff can be so draining and I would need to spend a lot of time recharging alone. So I'm looking to make an attack plan to fix this. Any ideas? I'm thinking I can break my introversion with sheer exposure but not sure if that's actually possible.

 

[WALMART]

Why do you want to break your introversion?

 

[ndovjtjcaqidthi]

I don't think it can be done without like, a brain injury, or something equally traumatic.

You can definitely fake extroversion though..

Though, I don't know why you'd want to.

 

[Udog]

What's wrong with going out there, doing something exciting, and then recharging afterward? The more you do it the more you'll be able to do and the less down time you'll require. But you gotta start somewhere. Think of it like a muscle - with exercise comes strength and endurance.

 

[Alea_iacta_est]

How to evolve extroversion as an introvert:
1. Be an introvert
2. Gather up all of your friends who are more introverted than you
3. Congratulations, you are the most extroverted introvert and everyone else will rely on you to think of things to do
4. Rinse
5. Repeat
6. After a several hundred times, you can officially project an extroverted personality and hang out with your more extroverted friends (because you'll act more extroverted and have more friends by this point) though you will never gain energy out of hanging out with others.

Source: Experience. I've mistyped as my projection often.

 

[badger055]

Why do you want to break your introversion?

So I can let my 7 free to run wild. I feel like my introversion is holding me back from experiencing all of life. I get all these impulses of things I want to do but it's hard to follow through because I'm more comfortable cutting myself off from the world to take in energy.

I don't think it can be done without like, a brain injury, or something equally traumatic.

You can definitely fake extroversion though..

Though, I don't know why you'd want to.

I'm not looking to fake it. The only thing I care about is fixing the energy problem. I'm guessing the energy problem is linked to my nervous system and it needs to be conditioned.

The more you do it the more you'll be able to do and the less down time you'll require. But you gotta start somewhere. Think of it like a muscle - with exercise comes strength and endurance.

Is this actually true or is it speculation? Has anyone here actually done this? I don't want to put the effort in and then find out at the end it doesn't work.

 

[ndovjtjcaqidthi]

How to evolve extroversion as an introvert:
1. Be an introvert
2. Gather up all of your friends who are more introverted than you
3. Congratulations, you are the most extroverted introvert and everyone else will rely on you to think of things to do
4. Rinse
5. Repeat
6. After a several hundred times, you can officially project an extroverted personality and hang out with your more extroverted friends (because you'll act more extroverted and have more friends by this point) though you will never gain energy out of hanging out with others.

Source: Experience. I've mistyped as my projection often.

Haha, nice.

Still though.. No.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Though, I don't know why you'd want to.

 

[Udog]

Is this actually true or is it speculation? Has anyone here actually done this? I don't want to put the effort in and then find out at the end it doesn't work.

I have when I needed to, but tend to revert back since I rarely have a compelling reason to maintain being extremely social.

 

[LonestarCowgirl]

I don't see why not. Throw the enthusiastic introvert in a crowd for a few days to actively conquer their fears and watch the wonders of neuroplasticity at work. The brain should adapt accordingly.

 

[ndovjtjcaqidthi]

I don't see why not. Throw the enthusiastic introvert in a crowd for a few days to actively conquer their fears and watch the wonders of neuroplasticity at work. The brain should adapt accordingly.

Do you think it's really about "fear"?

 

[INTP]

You can develop the extraverted sides in you, that is Se and Fe. Trying to transform yourself into extravert wont work out for you, since its not your real self. More you learn to use your E side comfortably, less it will drain you, but you wont turn into someone who gets energy from acting E. Or from what i have noticed in myself(and see in other introverts aswell) is that not training on your E side can be taxing on your energy levels aswell. I think its because learning to become more E will drain you more, but once you get more used to it, it will drain you less and the introverted side needs to become adjusted to this energy drainage, and it will adjust to it so that the energy gain and extra drainage will become +-0 even if you would extravert more. Its sort of like your machinery becoming more stable and powerful when you learn to both expand the energy and also gain it in more balanced way.

And for how this is done, well you obviously need motivation to actually do things that require extraversion and then just start doing more of those things in a way that is still at least somewhat comfortable to you, but still pushes your limits a little bit.

 

[PimpinMcBoltage]

Take things at face value more, be more objective in your reasoning and what you point out. Pay attention less to how you see things, and try to view things from a less personalized way. Become more focused on fulfilling goals, and consult to others. Ect Ect.

 

[INTP]

Take things at face value more, be more objective in your reasoning and what you point out. Pay attention less to how you see things, and try to view things from a less personalized way. Become more focused on fulfilling goals, and consult to others. Ect Ect.

I dont think these are going to work for an ISTP. First about the objective reasoning part, the whole reason why an ISTP is an introvert is because of strong Ti, what needs to be done is to drop this T style reasoning out from situations where it comes automatically and isnt really needed. Trying to be more objective about reasoning will just cause more reasoning, which is something opposite of what needs to be done. I think your suggestions would work for an INFP, but ISTPs are completely different creatures and need different medicine.

This viewing things from less personalized way is another thing that would most likely just backfire. The idea is to develop Fe and that kinda requires the person to take things in more personalized way emotionally and learning how to control his own emotions and to gain empathy. But the thing is that Ti needs to learn that not everything that Ti says is true, even tho it may seem reasonable and there wouldnt be any alternative explanations that would explain things better.

Fulfilling goal wouldnt help much unless those goals have Fe motivation instead of some other motivation. The thing is that ISTPs have NiFe as their shadow "J type" and committing to goals needs to come from here, so that this side of the self will develop. Committing to a goal that isnt Fe motivated wont do any good(except that it gives IRL xp) and might just tax on him too much so that he would give up. If the goal is something that an Te type would enjoy and he would try to get through with Te style attitude, that would just suck to do and wouldnt do any good(other than gaining some strength from doing something that doesent feel good).

 

[Comeback Girl]

Or, you could look at it this way:

Who cares if you're introverted or not? Love yourself, bitchazzz!

 

[ameeker]

I don't think you mean introversion, I think you mean shyness. Completely different. Shy people have a hard time socializing. That you just fix with practice. Introversion means 1) you draw energy in solitary and, if you're an IxTx, it means 2) you don't wear your heart on your sleeve. So, no, I don't think you can change your personality type to ESTP through practice.

 

[digesthisickness]

Shyness could be it. It's brutal and so self-critical. Blowing the smallest things up into raging anxiety-riddled doubts that freeze you.

If that is it, then yeah, only plowing through it will help. Doing that which you fear you'll do enough times that it doesn't even effect you anymore. Like saying hello to a pretty girl and immediately farting. (Change that to guy and it happened to me; I lived, he didn't)

 

[INTP]

So, no, I don't think you can change your personality type to ESTP through practice.

The point is not to turn into ESTP, the idea is to learn to use the inferior Fe(and the tert Ni that comes with it, i think Se most likely doesent require so much work) and to let go of excess Ti.

If you look at ISTP functions; TiSeNiFe, those are the same functions than with NFJ, except the aux/dom and tert/inferior function "blocks" change position. So for ISTP to develop, it means to become more like an ENFJ or an ESFP(yes ESFP is FiTe, but Se + F is the important part). The aim shouldnt be to transform self into ENFJ, but to learn those things that ENFJs are naturally fluent in, because those are the exact same things that ISTPs often suck at and where the wholeness of the personality comes from for an ISTP.

 

[skylights]

I'm an istp 7 so I have the 7s need for a variety of experiences clashing against my introversion. My introversion is way stronger than my 7 unfortunately. If I have a choice of going out and doing something or screwing around on the Internet I choose the Internet most of the time. Doing stuff can be so draining and I would need to spend a lot of time recharging alone. So I'm looking to make an attack plan to fix this. Any ideas? I'm thinking I can break my introversion with sheer exposure but not sure if that's actually possible.

My ISTP brother does a lot of activities though he is fairly introverted. Typically they are solitary, like working out, driving listening to music, mountain biking, and so on. When he hangs out with others it's usually low-key, just getting food, watching TV, or playing video games.

No point in trying to "break" what you are, but maybe just trying to gravitate towards activities that feed your desire for novelty and variety while not draining you as much.

 

[badger055]

I dont think these are going to work for an ISTP. First about the objective reasoning part, the whole reason why an ISTP is an introvert is because of strong Ti, what needs to be done is to drop this T style reasoning out from situations where it comes automatically and isnt really needed. Trying to be more objective about reasoning will just cause more reasoning, which is something opposite of what needs to be done. I think your suggestions would work for an INFP, but ISTPs are completely different creatures and need different medicine.

This viewing things from less personalized way is another thing that would most likely just backfire. The idea is to develop Fe and that kinda requires the person to take things in more personalized way emotionally and learning how to control his own emotions and to gain empathy. But the thing is that Ti needs to learn that not everything that Ti says is true, even tho it may seem reasonable and there wouldnt be any alternative explanations that would explain things better.

Fulfilling goal wouldnt help much unless those goals have Fe motivation instead of some other motivation. The thing is that ISTPs have NiFe as their shadow "J type" and committing to goals needs to come from here, so that this side of the self will develop. Committing to a goal that isnt Fe motivated wont do any good(except that it gives IRL xp) and might just tax on him too much so that he would give up. If the goal is something that an Te type would enjoy and he would try to get through with Te style attitude, that would just suck to do and wouldnt do any good(other than gaining some strength from doing something that doesent feel good).

The point is not to turn into ESTP, the idea is to learn to use the inferior Fe(and the tert Ni that comes with it, i think Se most likely doesent require so much work) and to let go of excess Ti.

If you look at ISTP functions; TiSeNiFe, those are the same functions than with NFJ, except the aux/dom and tert/inferior function "blocks" change position. So for ISTP to develop, it means to become more like an ENFJ or an ESFP(yes ESFP is FiTe, but Se + F is the important part). The aim shouldnt be to transform self into ENFJ, but to learn those things that ENFJs are naturally fluent in, because those are the exact same things that ISTPs often suck at and where the wholeness of the personality comes from for an ISTP.

This is true I socialize more like an ENFJ than an ESTP. I have already been working on dropping Ti from interactions which worked at first but it was hard to stay consistent. Now that I know I'm a 7 I can stop myself from integrating to 5 and focus on my core 7. You are right my goals need to be Fe motivated also known as caring about something. You really know your shit.

Alright you guys have helped a lot. So here is my attack plan. Let me know what you guys think.

-I need to make more reasons to want to go out. So I'm drawing on my 7 instinct to surround myself with like minded people. People who are like minded aren't really draining to me. To do this I need to move I have been toying with the idea for awhile now. I live in the city and the smaller towns are more my crowd. I think I do better as a big fish in a small pond anyway.

-I need to cut out the stimulation I get from the computer. I have to get my excitement from doing things with people instead like I did before the internet. I have tried this in the past but I relapsed.

-Focus more on socializing like an ENFJ and think less.

-Stop integrating to 5 be more 7.

-Expose myself to a lot of extroverted things. Eventually it will adjust on it's own.

-If all else fails then monster energy drinks