Quiet Girl, Loud City

Job Hunting as an Introvert in the Eyes of an Introvert:

Let’s just say, it ain’t easy. Currently, I am employed, but the issue right now is I would love to advance my career by seeing what else is out there for me. It’s early on in my career and I intend to take many opportunities. However, the economy isn’t helping. And the amount of people searching for jobs is overwhelming, making every single job posting extremely competitive, nearly impossible to even get your foot in the door to simply get an interview. Now, all you get is 300 applications filled and emails written, absolutely no responses, and an extreme frustration that makes you practically burst a blood vessel. Often times, we may feel stuck. I, for one, feel stuck in my career. I would like to move forward, but because of the limitations of the economy today, I am stuck. Now don’t get me wrong, I am extremely grateful that I even have a job, but day after day, I feel like I need to do something to push my goals further and further. After being with the same company for 2 years, I’d say it’s time to try new things. But, I’m at a standstill.

So what do you do? Sometimes I wonder if extroverts have it easier finding jobs. Often times, I get frustrated with myself: Why can’t I just call the company up and try to win them with my ‘dazzling’ personality? …I bet if I went to more social networking events, I would have a job by now…I bet they won’t respond because I’m at the end of the line, end of the pack. All the Alphas and Firecrackers are way ahead of me already with this…I’m going to blow it in this interview because they’ll see I’m not a big talker, every interview I go to they are always looking for a lot of ‘charisma,’ why can’t I be like that around strangers? and so on and so forth. What’s the most frustrating thing about all this is that you just never know what the reason is behind all of it. Why you weren’t the one who was picked out of the bunch. I wonder though, is it harder for introverts? Because we tend to do what is needed, and allow others to take their time deciding? Am I too passive or do I need to bust through the doors and scream out ‘HERE I AM! HIRE ME! ME ME ME!’ Is that rude, or would that be considered bold and desirable? I am never really comfortable with shamelessly promoting myself, and I never know whether or not what is too much or too little. 

It requires a lot of energy to find a job. I also have some issues with interviews. First, I am excited about the interview, but then next, like 24 hours before the interview, I begin to have thoughts of worry. With practice, I am able to give a ‘good performance’ at an interview, but I am always left wondering if I smiled enough, gave enough enticing eye contact, how my body language was, how my voice sounded (did I stumble? stutter? Did I sound enthused enough?), if I talked enough about myself or did I not talk enough? All of this and more can leave me ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTED! Trying to keep track of all of these things, on top of trying to say the right things, is a job within itself.

What I find interesting, however, is that in Susan Cain’s book “Quiet,” she explains that there is a “free trait theory,” which explains that some introverts will take on a ‘false persona’ or to do something that feels uncomfortable to them for something that is extremely important to them. For example, an introverted professor will present speeches day after day with great power because he has a passion for teaching. For me, sometimes the free trait theory works for my career. I know I want to advance my career. And sometimes, only way to do that is to suck it up, put on a pseudo-extrovert persona for a little while and go to a networking event, or really wow someone in an interview. Whenever I don’t feel like doing something because of my nerves, I just tell myself that this is for my career, and say it to myself over and over again. After a while, I get used to the networking events and interviews and I get into the swing of things.

Right now, I’m in a slump, but I know I’ll be able to pick myself up! Good luck job hunting!

Review: Quiet: The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain

I was so excited to read this book after I saw Susan Cain’s video of her TEDTalk about introverts. Nearly everything she talked about in her TEDTalk, I found myself nodding my head in agreement. I’ve been living as an introvert my entire life, and for the longest time, I felt like an outcast. I would find my parents embarrassed of my ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ demeanor and worried that there was something fundamentally wrong with my social skills development growing up. I think this year was the FIRST time I ever heard that it was okay to be an introvert. And in Susan Cain’s book, research on top of research; interview after interview, truly proves this. It actually empowered me in many different ways. In this highly extroverted country, the culture idolizes the extrovert, while the introvert is seen as weak. Cain proves that this ‘extrovert ideal’ is cultural. In other countries, being an introvert means power. In America, however, getting ahead & being overtly assertive has become the way of life, and the many, many amazing qualities of introverts is clouded. Introverts tend to have a better understanding of themselves and tend to be more aware of the needs of others. Introverts tend to have more well-thought out ideas, as they like to share only when they are comfortable with the ideas. Introverts are GREAT leaders and innovators. This book allowed me to truly understand myself and my personality type. If you’re an introvert, I’d highly recommend this book. You’ll feel so great about yourself, and gain so much knowledge.

How many times have I made this excuse?

It’s not that I DON’T want to do anything with friends or co-workers, but it’s just when things are done at last-minute or on the fly, I get extremely uncomfortable. I’m a person of routine. I like to do things planned accordingly. I usually eat the same thing for breakfast, go to the same place for lunch. It’s usually tough for me to drastically change the balance of my day. For my health, this is fantastic (I get used to eating the same healthy foods, going to the gym every other day at the same time, going to sleep at the same time each night, etc), but for my social life, it’s not so great. But then again, I’m totally happy just doing my own thing. On a normal day, I’d go to the gym in the morning, go to work, meet my boyfriend after work & relax for the rest of the evening (relaxing, meaning: eating dinner, surfing the web, and catching up on some television shows online). Sometimes, I get afraid that I’ll be offending my friends if I decline an invite. Once before, I knew a group of colleagues who were always going out for drinks, having parties with each other; and for a while, I was invited to their events. However, their style of socializing did not really agree with mine (they were all realllyy loud, risk-takers, etc), and it made me feel uncomfortable whenever I was with the large group. As time went on, I would decline their invites practically all the time because I never had fun at their events, but I really wished I would (it always looked like they had such a fun time and it made me upset that I could just never get into it). One-on-one with the people in the group, I was totally cool with them. But as a large group, I could never handle it. Unfortunately, it made me believe that they thought that I was some kind of ‘party pooper’ and eventually just don’t want to be around me anymore. I kept trying to convince myself that I was the one who was rejecting them, but in my mind, because our extrovert & introvert party styles collided, it caused me to believe that they were the ones rejecting me. 

It’s been like that many times before: I am afraid of people NOT liking me, that I just reject them before they even get to know me. I’m sure it’s a problem with a lot of people, but whenever it’s a matter of ‘I’m unsure of what this person thinks of me because they’re so cool, or higher-up on the corporate ladder,’ I tend to shut myself off.   I am unsure why I naturally do this, because I don’t necessarily think of myself in a poor light. I think it’s actually because I know that if a person like that would like me, then it would throw off my entire lifestyle balance, if that makes any sense. If I made friendly acquaintances with someone who goes out a lot, is highly advanced in their career, etc, then I would feel like I would have to keep up with them, or go to all of the events that they invite me to, and feel like I would be pressured to keep in constant communication with them. If I don’t, then I know I would be setting myself up for rejection because I can’t keep up with the extroverted ways. I’m trying to get out of this state of mind, but it’s difficult. I think I’m a bit too modest sometimes…

Anyways, I know there’s nothing wrong with a routine, but how do you guys deal with other extroverts or last-minute invites? I’m interested to read how other introverts deal with this stuff!

Why are we, as introverts, so hard on ourselves sometimes?

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s the realization that I am insanely too hard on myself when it comes to things. As of recently, I’ve discovered that I am an ISFP introvert. Meaning, I am a strong visual thinker and I internalize my ideas and develop them until I think they are good enough to share. I am a graphic designer, and sometimes in my field, this way of doing things is okay, but then again, it can be detrimental. When brainstorming in a group, it is extremely difficult for me to just shout out an idea and continuously build that idea off of what everyone else yells out in the group. It’s tough for introverts to do things like this because our brains process things in a longer path (as I have read in The Introvert Advantage), whereas extroverts have a shorter pathway. Usually, I would need to collect and listen to everyone’s ideas and then make points after everything has been done, and add on to those ideas. In a fast and aggressive situation like that, my brain just seems to shut off. Not because I don’t have any ideas, but because once I am in the middle of processing one thing someone said, the entire group is done and on to the next train of thought. Sometimes, it makes me want to say, HEY SLOW DOWN FOR A SEC!

The larger the group is, the more difficult it becomes as well. Luckily for me, I work in a small design firm…and usually, everyone seems to get how my thought process works. My co-workers seem to respect my opinions and value the work that I do. A few years ago, however, this was not the case when I was interning for a larger agency.

As what I could recall, I was extremely unsure of myself when I was an intern, as any intern would be, but I seemed to be unreasonably harsh on myself. Many times, I would get paranoid and tell myself that “The people here don’t like me! They think I am a bad designer! They think I am inefficient!” and the more I told myself these things, the more I screwed up. I was embarrassed to ask questions, to make mistakes, or to just put myself out there. It’s ironic, though, that the more conscious I was about how I wasn’t being more pushy, aggressive, and confident, and I wasn’t pretending to be ‘the shit’, the more withdrawn I became. You see, fear can be a good thing, as it can keep you from doing something dangerous or stupid; but fear can also be an extremely dangerous thing, as it can cripple you from doing things you want to do. Every time the creative director would chide me for not getting her lunch order correct, or if I didn’t buy the right paper to print on, the more and more I would blame myself. I was terrified of this lady. She made me feel small and weak. The things I did that were correct, I never rewarded myself, but instead just said to myself that’s how things are supposed to be. I should never mess up. And if I did, just ONCE, my mind would torment itself for the rest of the day. I felt like a prisoner in my own body. And I felt like everyone around me could see my mind racing and seeing all of the faults I thought I had. Truth of the matter is, NO ONE knows what you are thinking. All the while I was terrified, everyone around me thought I was calm and collected. It wasn’t until after the summer of my internship that I realized that my boss was just a stuck-up bitch who had something up her ass that summer and was taking it out on me. I knew that a place like that was a place I didn’t want to start my career in. Now that I’ve found a good place for me to do what I love at work, everything seemed to fall into place. So sometimes, when you don’t fit in somewhere, don’t start blaming yourself. It’s tough, but there are many different places and people out there…you just need to find what fits best for you. Not what you try to fit into.

Growing up with an extroverted sibling isn’t easy

My parents always knew that my older sister and I are like night and day when it came to our personalities. My sister would be extremely social; asking questions, and constantly looking for new friends. Me, on the other hand, would spend countless hours in my bedroom, building forts out of my bedsheets, and hanging out with my stuffed animals. My sister was a social butterfly. I was considered to be ‘withdrawn.’ Whenever we had a family function, or we were introduced to new people, my identifier title was “The Shy One.” I seriously looked up to my sister, as any little sister would, and I tried to do everything that she did. I considered her to be my best friend when I was younger and could not understand why she wanted to meet new friends instead of spend time with me. While her extroversion was praised by adults, my introversion was negatively received. Growing up with this comparison constantly by my side was not beneficial to my self-esteem. Not only was I envious of my sister’s extroverted abilities, but I was also hurt that she did not share the same ‘close tie’ values of friendship as I did. I wanted to be like her so much so badly, and at the same time, I despised her for it.

As we have gotten older, there has still been that big bold line that defined our personalities as opposites, but I have been able to distance myself from that extrovert envy that I had towards her when I was younger. It was always the classic Marcia vs. Jan, Bridget vs. Kerry battle between us. During the holidays, my sister would have no shame talking about her achievements at work, show off her photos with her numerous friends, and work the room to every person there; while I would normally talk to one or two people and would much rather talk about things other than myself. Extrovert vs. Introvert in the family can create a massive rivalry, but I have found ways to get around that and focus on what makes me unique. Now that the holidays are around, here are a few ways to make sure you don’t become victim of that extrovert envy:

Before a family function, make a list of good qualities & achievements you have. They don’t have to be anything big or groundbreaking, even the small things count. Reason why this is a good thing to keep in your mind: whenever my sister would start to go on about herself, I would start to compare myself to her in my mind. Then, I would start to think that because I’m negatively comparing myself to her, I felt like everyone else in the room was as well. This would drive me nuts and I would start to get angry, and no one would ever quite know why. Repeating that list in your head is a good thing to do when the negative starts to come in.

Leave the room politely if your extroverted sibling starts to get under your skin. 

If you don’t want to have awkward conversation, help with the dinner, or help the hostess. I’ve always find this to be a very good technique because it gets your mind away from the extroverted sibling stealing the show, and in a very positive and helpful light. It also helps you think ‘My sister/brother is good at socializing, but I am good at helping out.’ It’s a constructive way to see your qualities and stop comparing. 

Read up on some current events, or some funny news & change the subject of conversation to get the topic away from your sister/brother if it’s been going on for a bit too long. Just remember not to do this rudely, you want to transition into this smoothly, as to not make it seem like you’re being petty. 

Make a card or gift for relatives/guests This always makes me feel good inside when I give a gift, plus it makes relatives more appreciative of you and remind them that you are caring and put your good qualities in the spotlight.

I know I have a few more techniques, but I want to know what you think! How do you deal with your extroverted sibling during the holidays?

Cats & Dogs

The one way to describe and explain the temperament of introverts and extroverts is through the ‘cat and dog’ analogy. Cats are introverts. Dogs are extroverts. Now, as an introvert myself, I am more of a dog person, but I also love cats and can understand their more complex temperaments. 

So why are cats like introverts?

Cats need their personal space. Most cats usually like to observe their subjects and are usually peeved or flighty when a stranger tries to force themselves upon them first. Generally, they can tolerate social interaction in small doses. When they start to get overstimulated, they need to retreat to their special spots. I’ve learned that with cats, they like to be around people, but to view them from afar. Then, you should wait for them to make first contact. Many big dog lovers usually don’t understand why cats hate it and try to get away when a stranger grabs them and tries to pet them. Because it’s too much at once; just like when an extrovert comes on too strong to an introvert. This doesn’t mean a cat doesn’t like you, it just means the cat needs to get to know you better before taking that next step. When things are taken slowly, introverts tend to respond better. Like cats, we need our boundaries. Like cats, we prefer to observe, and then participate when we are ready to do so, or when we feel we have something of value to say. Dogs, on the other hand, are constantly stimulated by interactions with others and gain more energy by doing so.