How do you chart an ever changing path?

[Jdiesl]

Before anyone lights their torches and pulls out the pitchforks... Yes this topic I'm sure has been beaten to death but no ones forcing you to read. I just found the forum today so cheers

(SKIP IF YOU LIKE) My story in a nutshell. Currently I find myself back home with my folks. Another failed attempt at making a career of something I'm good at. 27 years old. No wife or kids. Frustrated by my lack of direction. I develop a plan and within 3 months it's obsolete. I can't stay focused on any one thing for too long and I haven't been able to harness my personality in any meaningful/beneficial way. I've done a wide range of jobs from trucking to sports journalism and even played poker full time for a while. I tend to switch off from life. Everything from relationships to friendships to work etc is affected.

The question
I feel like I've been in this endless loop since I was a teenager. Has anyone found the cheat sheet on how to live a somewhat normal life as INTP? It's such an eccentric personality type that it seems the majority of us have a hard time functioning in a traditional lifestyle. I'd happily create my own path but where do you begin? As the title asks. How do you chart an ever changing path? How do you choose a direction when everything you do is fluid and you're unable to conform to a typical blueprint?

 

[QuickTwist]

You don't chart an ever changing path. The only way is to start small and pick one or two things and do them everyday. This will provide structure for the rest of your life. Once you establish a couple of things you do every day, you will start to crave more structure in your life and will add more things to your everyday routine.

Also, I know this can be difficult to do at first, but if you can start to make lists on what you want to accomplish, things get a lot easier in terms of being productive. I know this works, but I still have trouble doing it myself.

The idea is to get out of your head and try and coach yourself into being more steady. Self talk can be very effective in this.

 

[Tannhauser]

My default idea about that kind of stuff is usually that we are all just leaves in the wind, that there are no self-help books that are gonna do anything for you, there is no advice that you can really internalize etc.

But if we do assume we have some control over things, my suggestion is finding some sort of thread that has run through all the stuff you've done. If there is none, make up some narrative and eventually it will sound true.

Congruency, even if its purely in your head, is very good for having a hormone-level drive and focus in life, which, in the end, is all that counts.

 

[Jdiesl]

@QT Thank you I will try that out.
@Tann I'll start digging around here more. Thank you.

I just have a hard time being happy for longer than a couple months. It's seems to be a brutal cycle of enthusiasm about something new then it becomes a grind then before long I need out... I feel physically sick until I make a change and then a bout of depression for a few months and then rinse/repeat.

I'm hoping by posting this maybe someone with a little free time could lend me guidance. I know many of us are in the same boat but some have more extremes than others. I'd love to get it under control as I feel my life slipping away...

I wish I could free-wheel and go with the flow but I'm 27 so at what point do I turn things around?

 

[Not Anyone To Care For]

Charting requires patterns and routine..

What you need is stability and structure.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

I feel like I've been in this endless loop since I was a teenager. Has anyone found the cheat sheet on how to live a somewhat normal life as INTP? It's such an eccentric personality type that it seems the majority of us have a hard time functioning in a traditional lifestyle. I'd happily create my own path but where do you begin? As the title asks. How do you chart an ever changing path? How do you choose a direction when everything you do is fluid and you're unable to conform to a typical blueprint?

Like a shotgun blast, with the understanding that your own perspective is from within the funnel and directed at the target, and that, hence, as time goes by it becomes more difficult to change from one dot/choice/option to another, whereas simultaneously, one is unaware of this because their area of focus and awareness is finite:

Spoiler

I wish I could free-wheel and go with the flow but I'm 27 so at what point do I turn things around?

When you get the motivation to do so.

Why do you exist?
https://toleratedindividuality.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/the-myth-of-sisyphus.pdf

 

[Jdiesl]

Like a shotgun blast, with the understanding that your own perspective is from within the funnel and directed at the target, and that, hence, as time goes by it becomes more difficult to change from one dot/choice/option to another, whereas simultaneously, one is unaware of this because their area of focus and awareness is finite:

Spoiler

When you get the motivation to do so.

Why do you exist?
https://toleratedindividuality.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/the-myth-of-sisyphus.pdf

thank you! I appreciate this post the most... It's put many things in perspective. I just need to enjoy the ride. Trying to conform to the general populations belief of what success and happiness entail is futile. I'm just going to focus on what I want and see where I land instead of aiming for any specific plateau.

 

[Architect]

Read A.J Drenth's book "The INTP Quest" available on Amazon.

What worked for me was I wanted to find my path so badly that I threw myself fully into whatever I did. Scorched earth policy, I blew up everything behind me and went forward with all I had. Then, after making some success at it, if it wasn't the right thing I did it all over again. So I burned though music, art, writing, businessman, physics and a few other careers. Ended up in software engineering at about your age and have stayed there ever since.

I didn't plan this (didn't know I was an INTP at the time and it wouldn't have helped anyhow) but it worked well. The reason being once I tried something fully I knew it wasn't right, so I changed course and never looked back. If I had done a half-assed approach then I'd probably have ended up waffling between possibilities.

That's at the high level, now in my field I continually try, fail and change directions, but the overall direction is forward.

 

[Ex-User (8886)]

Before anyone lights their torches and pulls out the pitchforks... Yes this topic I'm sure has been beaten to death but no ones forcing you to read. I just found the forum today so cheers

(SKIP IF YOU LIKE) My story in a nutshell. Currently I find myself back home with my folks. Another failed attempt at making a career of something I'm good at. 27 years old. No wife or kids. Frustrated by my lack of direction. I develop a plan and within 3 months it's obsolete. I can't stay focused on any one thing for too long and I haven't been able to harness my personality in any meaningful/beneficial way. I've done a wide range of jobs from trucking to sports journalism and even played poker full time for a while. I tend to switch off from life. Everything from relationships to friendships to work etc is affected.

The question
I feel like I've been in this endless loop since I was a teenager. Has anyone found the cheat sheet on how to live a somewhat normal life as INTP? It's such an eccentric personality type that it seems the majority of us have a hard time functioning in a traditional lifestyle. I'd happily create my own path but where do you begin? As the title asks. How do you chart an ever changing path? How do you choose a direction when everything you do is fluid and you're unable to conform to a typical blueprint?

learn how to use your very strong, but unconcious function - Te
it's a matter for very long discussion, but it's possible, I use that to achive what I want;
it requires anger - strong will to bring your order or destruction to external reality, gives you extremely confidence, makes you badass;
but it's very exhausting and not mental healthy, so it's short term use;
simply read what Te is and start using it;

then go in a gym, destroy your muscles, feel the pain for next week and make it comfortable;
I started to study then, because I'm still in college, idk what you want to do;
maybe start a job that you are going to hate, but you'll get money and have some insights what can you do;
remember, everything goes through pain - mental or physical

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Put yourself in a do or die situation.

If you always keep going back to living with your parents in the back of your mind, your lazy brain won't kick to higher gears trying to figure out how to succeed.

It is by overcoming fear and weakness that you learn about and become convinced of your strengths.

If you come to hate your miserable self enough, then perhaps death will become a better negative answer when you finally seriously ask the question "can I change?".

 

[QuickTwist]

I didn't plan this (didn't know I was an INTP at the time and it wouldn't have helped anyhow) but it worked well.

This is news to me. How did you reach this conclusion?

 

[Architect]

This is news to me. How did you reach this conclusion?

What conclusion, that it worked well? Not sure of the question.

If the question is devoting yourself fully to something then yeah - no halfsies, no holding back - usually pays off. Either positively in that you succeed, or negatively in that you fail and know it was the wrong path. Come to think of it I think Robert Heinlein had that advice in one of his novels, and he had a profound influence on me.

If the question is figuring out myself as an INTP (I talked about this before), first I thought INFJ (inferior attraction thing probably) while in music, then I realized INTJ while in physics (most physicists are INTJ's btw), then in engineering I read the Paul James profile and realized "oh shit I'm an INTP". Disappointing, last thing I wanted to be was such a loser type, but the evidence was inescapable.