INTJMom
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2007
- Messages
- 5,413
- MBTI Type
- INTJ
- Enneagram
- 5w4
So I guess basically, I was just lacking confidence because I have been feeling much better since my talk with my ESTJ friend this morning.
I've been thinking how confidence and feeling competent go together, for me anyhow. Looking back through my life, I can see how when I feel confident I can do something, it's because I know - usually by prior experience - that I will be competent at it. And when I know I am competent at something, I lack no confidence whatsoever. As a matter of fact, they are materially necessary in order for me to attempt to do anything. The confidence that I will be competent gives me the freedom to try. And the freedom to enjoy myself in the process. Otherwise, I am usually in a state of paralysis.
It's too bad that so many people find an INTJs confidence akin to arrogance. I don't think it's arrogance at all. It's like having my clothes on before I go outside. I can't function without it. I doubt if all INTJs are that way, but I am... probably because of a combination of different factors.
Another thing I saw yesterday is the way the J works for me... needing to have things planned out and decided ahead of time. That all plays into the competence thing. If I don't know what to expect and can't plan ahead, then I can't prepare and can't be sure I'll be competent. This crushes my confidence, and the lack of confidence just breeds mistakes and feelings of incompetence, and thoughts of, "Well! I'm never doing THAT again!"
A curious thing happened yesterday when I was playing music with my father. He plays a keyboard into which he has programmed all the sounds of a full size band. For each song, the tempo is set ahead of time, the intro, the instruments, and what not. Well yesterday, we started a song that I have probably sung at least 100 times, but unbeknownst to me he had changed all the settings of the back-up music. I grabbed onto the tempo and started singing and all of a sudden everything became unfamiliar to me. I all of a sudden didn't recognize what we were doing and I didn't know what to sing. I looked over at my father with the deer in the headlights expression on my face. I pictured something like a 20 car pile-up on the freeway in my mind - thoughts going every which way and crashed into each other. Seriously. Now I take it that a P doesn't have that problem. They can just go with the flow and roll with the changes.
So I'm thinking that the complaint INTJs get about being stuck in their way of doing something is part of the whole package. Every Type has good and bad points. Some people see the inability to adjust on the fly as a bad thing. Well, I guess it might be to a certain degree, but it also has the good value of being predictable. Some people like that. I know I do.
I've been thinking how confidence and feeling competent go together, for me anyhow. Looking back through my life, I can see how when I feel confident I can do something, it's because I know - usually by prior experience - that I will be competent at it. And when I know I am competent at something, I lack no confidence whatsoever. As a matter of fact, they are materially necessary in order for me to attempt to do anything. The confidence that I will be competent gives me the freedom to try. And the freedom to enjoy myself in the process. Otherwise, I am usually in a state of paralysis.
It's too bad that so many people find an INTJs confidence akin to arrogance. I don't think it's arrogance at all. It's like having my clothes on before I go outside. I can't function without it. I doubt if all INTJs are that way, but I am... probably because of a combination of different factors.
Another thing I saw yesterday is the way the J works for me... needing to have things planned out and decided ahead of time. That all plays into the competence thing. If I don't know what to expect and can't plan ahead, then I can't prepare and can't be sure I'll be competent. This crushes my confidence, and the lack of confidence just breeds mistakes and feelings of incompetence, and thoughts of, "Well! I'm never doing THAT again!"
A curious thing happened yesterday when I was playing music with my father. He plays a keyboard into which he has programmed all the sounds of a full size band. For each song, the tempo is set ahead of time, the intro, the instruments, and what not. Well yesterday, we started a song that I have probably sung at least 100 times, but unbeknownst to me he had changed all the settings of the back-up music. I grabbed onto the tempo and started singing and all of a sudden everything became unfamiliar to me. I all of a sudden didn't recognize what we were doing and I didn't know what to sing. I looked over at my father with the deer in the headlights expression on my face. I pictured something like a 20 car pile-up on the freeway in my mind - thoughts going every which way and crashed into each other. Seriously. Now I take it that a P doesn't have that problem. They can just go with the flow and roll with the changes.
So I'm thinking that the complaint INTJs get about being stuck in their way of doing something is part of the whole package. Every Type has good and bad points. Some people see the inability to adjust on the fly as a bad thing. Well, I guess it might be to a certain degree, but it also has the good value of being predictable. Some people like that. I know I do.
I thought you meant jazz figuratively. You meant it literally! You played jazz music!
