# INFP Looking for Help with Career



## jedi650 (Oct 5, 2014)

Hi All,

I've been a long time reader but decided to finally register here on the site 

I'm at a bit of a crossroads with my career and am hoping an unbiased POV might help me better feel out paths that would both provide fulfillment and strong salary potential. I apologize that this is lengthy, but I would like to try painting a complete picture. For those that read this in its entirely, I really appreciate it.

A little background:
As a kid/teenager I spent a lot of time building websites, playing with legos, making short films, 3d modeling characters, and playing video games. I was fairly antisocial outside of a small group of immediate friends. I was keenly interested in video production, loving to screen my short films to my classmates and receiving a lot of praise for doing so -- My senior thesis was even on special effects. Then I went to a small liberal arts college where I studied computer science, art, and business. I had a really hard time committing to any one major and ended up with a business degree thinking that I wanted to some day start a small business. I worked closely with a friend from school who had a web design/development company and felt inspired by him -- the fact that at 19 he owned his own house, had tons of gadgets, a nice car, and worked on his own time always made me a bit jealous. But given my own devices, nothing really materialized for me in the same vein (maybe I didn't want it enough?) and I dove straight into the corporate world in a relatively boring job upon graduating.

Since then I've been bouncing around in various roles for the last 9 years, namely in advertising project management/production (first job I could get). I worked in ad agencies where I liked being close to the creative process, the personalities kept things fresh and adventurous, but the pay was poor, the hours long, clients/projects were either really interesting or horribly boring, and the final work was never appreciated by anyone outside of the industry. 

I'm now in brand management (client side), and while I enjoy parts of it I feel a little bogged down in corporate politics and structure, far removed from any real creative processes. Pay is better than the agency world but it's mostly meetings and making compromises and individual contributions are much harder to recognize.

And the sense of urgency, the reason I finally registered here on the site... My wife and I are expecting our first child in 6 months and I don't want this looming over me, affecting my ability to enjoy life and not give this kid the best side of myself. I've become consumed by my career exploration in the last 4 years and it's not going to cut it when this kid arrives.

Personal Challenges:
As you might have deduced already, I wrestle with pursuing a more "creative" pathway, which I feel would be more intrinsically rewarding, and with making a strong salary. I know this is typical of most in similar situations (INFPs making the lowest salaries on average compared to other types). I also wouldn't consider myself naturally talented with things like design, writing, etc, I am instead mostly passionate and curious about it. So I've considered everything from continuing this path with brand management, to going into real estate, composing music, becoming a developer, to pursuing hands on design work, or even building a creative studio. I've thought about keeping my day job, investing more into the marketing path while "building" things on the side and seeing what takes off. But, I'd really like to enjoy my day job more and merge my long list of interests into a single role. Ultimately the diversity in advertising campaigns and processes accomplished this for me in many ways, but I never felt fulfilled by the end results because most were passive campaigns. We did build a few experiences that were a bit more engaging (content oriented, software developed, etc) and I enjoyed the aftermath of those quite a bit, but ultimately they were ephemeral and were built to solve short term business problems (sales/perception), and not solve people problems, which I care more about.

The common themes are that I need more independence/flexibility in my schedule, I'd like to be able to travel and work with people I respect and admire, I want to be "building" things and exercising my creative muscles, I need to be part of a small team in a dynamic learning environment and not completely on my own (I need help executing and being held accountable), I need to see my work last more than a couple of weeks, and ideally, I'd have unlimited earning potential. 

I've met with career counselors and have either become discouraged because I don't think we're making progress and it's getting costly, or I feel that process produces generalized recommendations based on type, and not necessarily what's right for me -- my interests, my personal situation/age, etc.

I am restless and I want more personal satisfaction from my career, more adventure, more reward, while being able to provide for my growing family.

Even if you have no recommendations, this has felt really great to write out. And I thank you for reading.

If some insight can be gleaned from this, please let me know  Next steps? Recommendations? Etc.


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## William I am (May 20, 2011)

If you do something with better pay, will you gain (enough) more time to pursue something creative? For example, if you can go from working 5 days a week for x money to working 3 days a week for the same amount, you have 2 extra days free per week.
Obviously corporate worlds love to get you there for about 10 hours, 5 days a week, but maybe something like consulting would give you more freedom and license to be creative.

As I see it, there are two philosophies (and some middle ground) on work:
-Live to work: Your life's work is your life. You do something you are wholly committed to, and sacrifice life outside the work-world to excel at it.
-Work to live: Work is just a means to an end. You may or may not enjoy it, but it gives you resources to do what you really do enjoy doing on the side.

Normally, I think this is a subtle argument that everyone should just find a magical job that makes them really really happy, but my take on it is this:

Work to live, and try to do something you like or at least respect for work.
In other words, find something you like at least some and go with it. Unfortunately, a large chunk of the population doesn't enjoy their jobs at all. A chunk (including you) does enjoy their job a little but feels unsatisfied with it for whatever reason. And it would seem a small chunk of people really relish every day at work. 
Personally, I think the difference is how much you believe that what you're doing is good to be doing - for the world, for society, for yourself, whatever.

What is it you really want to do? It sounds like you want to create. Why not try to get out of the corporate slum and into a small business where they need a flexible person?

In anticipation of the answer "I don't know."....
If you don't know or care what you want to do, it doesn't really matter what you do, does it?


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## jedi650 (Oct 5, 2014)

Thank you very much, William. That's a great response.

I have a long list of career interests, but frankly don't hate the current track I'm on. I flex my preferences often but I do a lot of "creative stuff" in my free time and I really enjoy that.

I think the real challenge is determining my strengths to better help me narrow down my list. I'm sure half of the things on my list would just be too much of a stretch and investment in time getting up to speed to justify any "possible" long term financial rewards.

I've seen things like strengths finder out there, are there other options to better assessment where inherent strengths reside?


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## Beetle (Oct 2, 2014)

I'm an animator, it's fun, creative, and you may get to travel since jobs tend to be contract and you will jump from studio to studio...though that can be a drawback. I'm currently working with TV animation for some new Disney shows and it'll be awesome to see my scenes on TV. Though if you want financial stability I wouldn't recommend it. I'm being paid per frame which can either be awesome if you're on an easy show, or awful if you're on a hard show. Some jobs are salary though.

But anyways, sounds up your alley. There are a lot of jobs in the animation industry like BG painters, layout artists, compositors, special FX, lighting, textures, modelers, riggers, ect.


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## jedi650 (Oct 5, 2014)

Beetle,

Thank you for your reply. It's funny you should mention this because I did give animation a lot of consideration (and still do). I have an uncle who is an animator and I share a lot of personality traits with him. Out of curiosity, do you find repetitive? I'm a huge fan of illustration, although not a great drawer, I'll explore this further. Thanks again!


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## Courtalort (Jun 29, 2013)

How about web developer? You enjoyed tinkering with computer coding when you were a teenager, so that shows you have an affinity for it. It is creative as well as technical, and you are building things, even though they are intangible. Plus, once you get a portfolio built up you can have your own business and work from home, creating lots of flexibility and leaving the corporate world behind.


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## bluedomeofsky (Sep 30, 2014)

Find a job that you would be happy doing even on your bad hair days, one that has a bit of challenge to keep the spice going, and one that can at least pay for the bills and eventually for your children. And one that at least requires you to dress in a presentable manner so that your attractiveness does not go down even when you feel like so. A job that makes you more intelligent and attractive with time and experience is the one to go for. Being rich can come later when you have built up on skills that people would willingly pay for.


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## jedi650 (Oct 5, 2014)

I'm bumping the thread with an update... baby has arrived, she's gorgeous. Job and frustrations are still the same, however. 

I've been meeting with a career coach and have started whittling things down but there is no obvious path at this point. My marriage is on the rocks, unfortunately, so I'm trying to dig in and make some decisions. 

Have any INFPs here had corporate jobs and left? What did you do and how did you feel making the transition?


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