How Thinking and Feeling Personalities Get in Their Own Way

Learn why you might accidentally be sabotaging your goals in ways that feel “right.”

Image from 16personalities.com

What’s Coming Up

• How Thinking personalities weigh opportunities with sharp, objective judgment – and how that same judgment can make their wins feel hollow.

• How Feeling personalities follow their hearts to stay true to what feels right – and why that might actually pull them away from their own goals.

• The uncomfortable truth about how you might be sabotaging yourself in ways that feel “right”

This is part of a complete personal agency series– catch up on earlier articles to learn about the 5 components of agency, and more!

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According to our research, Thinking personalities are more likely to say that skill mastery and intellectual exploration are the intrinsic motivators behind their personal goals and ideas.

Feeling personalities, on the other hand, are a bit more likely to report personal values and meaningful ideas as their motivators.

These different motivations shape how Thinking and Feeling personalities pursue their goals – and where they accidentally get stuck.

Both types have a specific way they undermine themselves, and it disguises itself so well you might not realize you’re doing it. We’re going to explore that in more detail today.

How Thinking Personalities Achieve What They Want

Remember the “Opportunity” component of personal agency? It means having the chance to act, and people with the Thinking personality trait are very good at evaluating the opportunities before them – almost relentlessly, in fact.

They’re good at thinking things out and coming up with a plan – a logical, rational plan, of course. They’ll think through options systematically and spot flaws that others miss.

Consider a Thinking personality type who wants to start a business. Their first steps are likely to evaluate the market opportunity, build financial projections, analyze competitors, and map out operations. They create a comprehensive plan with contingencies, and the logic is sound.

How Thinking Types Block Themselves

But Thinking personalities are forgetting one key variable in that analysis, and it can accidentally lead to self-sabotage.

Here’s what it is: