Feeling Personality Types: Adulting Superpowers and Projects

Feeling personality types filter their decisions through their feelings. This can be both an asset and a liability when it comes to adulting. Great passion can accomplish a lot, but the fickle and complex nature of emotions can slow things down considerably.

Let’s look at a few advantages and disadvantages of the Feeling personality trait and how they relate to adulting. But before we start, if you don’t know whether or not you have the Feeling trait, follow this link to our free test to find out.

The Adulting Superpowers of Feeling Personality Types

When it comes to adulting, these will make things easier for Feeling personality types.

Adulting Is the Right Thing to Do

Individuals with the Feeling trait are likely to respond viscerally to things like adulting. They may instinctively feel that taking on more responsibility and independence are noble attributes. This will likely bring about a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. This may be multiplied if the adulting means that they are also taking a burden off of others, like parents who pay their cell phone bills.

Achieving this level of satisfaction can be motivating for these personality types. Are all Feeling types likely to focus on adulting as a means of finding happiness? Probably not. It’s more complicated than that. But many Feeling types may find this perspective a useful and natural viewpoint when adulting.

Adulting as a Passion Project

Often coming from the heart more than from the head, Feeling types might respond more readily to (and with) passion rather than reason. (That doesn’t mean that they don’t use reason at all. It’s a matter of degrees, preferences, and influences.) If something grabs their attention and feels meaningful to them, many Feeling types are likely to go all in. Feeling more like an adult might be one of those things.

If Feeling personality types catch adulting fever, it can turn into a passion project. Growing up and doing grown-up things is a big deal, and it makes sense that some Feeling personalities might find enthusiasm for adulting. With enthusiasm, motivation is built in.

Potential Adulting Projects for Feeling Personality Types

Nobody is perfect. We all need to pay attention to the obstacles in our lives, and Feeling personalities may be inspired to turn some into projects for improvement.

A More Objective View, Please

Often, feelings contribute significantly to productivity and meeting goals. But sometimes “I just don’t feel like it” wins out and prevents us from doing things. Then feelings aren’t so helpful. Doing something based on moods may be a more pronounced behavior in Feeling personality types because of their greater reliance on emotions. Consider that procrastination is usually not about willpower or laziness. It’s more often a way to avoid unpleasant feelings. “I can’t face the dishes tonight. They’ll be there in the morning.” Result: adulting delayed.

You may need to step back from your emotions and remember that you are not doing the dishes to feel good right then and there. You have the larger goal of being more independent and responsible. Accepting unpleasant feelings and doing the task anyway speaks to being an adult. And when you push past the emotions of the moment, think how proud you’ll feel when all the adulting is successfully completed (for the day).

Failure Feels Awful

No matter how hard we try, we humans are not perfect. We’re going to screw up. There’s no escaping it. Feeling personalities tend to be more sensitive. When they mess up, they may magnify their errors, so that things seem far worse than they are. Feeling personality types are also likely to indulge in self-blame. Enough self-blame, and giving up may seem like the most obvious choice to a demoralized individual.

Give yourself a break when your adulting isn’t perfect. Remind yourself that nobody’s adulting is picture-perfect. A little perspective helps. You forgot to pay the electric bill? It’s not the end of the world. The lights are still on. Pay it as quickly as possible. Put a reminder on your calendar to pay it on time next month. Then let it go. Don’t let these minor events define you. And most of all, don’t give up. Allow some missteps to be a natural part of adulting.

Final Thoughts

Passion gives us the energy to accomplish things like adulting. But the other side of strong feelings is that you don’t want to decide whether to do a task based on your mood-of-the-day. And you don’t want to judge yourself too harshly for your smaller mistakes. Neither judgment will do the job.