Some Advantages of Introversion

“All talk, no action.” Know anyone like this? Chances are they’re an extrovert--and they can’t do anything about it apart from fight their natural inclination to bash their gums, and share everything that’s on their mind and heart with everyone in earshot. If you’re introverted chances are you find this sort of person either tiresome or enviable. Because you’re so different, you’ll tend to feel for either one of those two extremes.

It takes all sorts to live in and operate on this planet of ours. The world needs both introverts and extroverts to function properly--God certainly designed and made both. In very simple terms, and to illustrate the point, extroverts are good for marketing jobs, yet introverts make good technicians.

I have recently re-discovered a key advantage the introvert has over the extrovert. It’s related to results. The introvert is simply often more convincing in their ‘achieved work’ than the extrovert.

We see here that showing people the results of our work as opposed to simply talking about them (before fruition) will mean the receiver of the information will react differently. The concept and theory of things always intuits a different response to the thing in reality.

There are some people, and introverts are quite adept at this, that have a low tolerance for ‘all talk only’ people, for which extroverts are famous.

The results of the thing that is done are salient, visible and most of all, tangible. What you see is what you get. Some people, again mostly introverts, prefer not to deal in lots of visionary intangibles, so if we’re extroverted, we should learn to put things in concrete ways for these very situations.

Other advantages of the introverted[1] could be that they:

10) Work well with others, especially in one-to-one relationships

9) Maintain long-term friendships easier

8) Are flexible

7) Are independent

6) Have a strong ability to concentrate

5) Are self-reflective

4) Are responsible

3) Can be creative, out-of-the-box thinkers

2) Have analytical skills that integrate complexity better

1) Are studious and smart

This is not to say extroverts don’t have strong features of those raised above; many do. The point relates to preference and generally no one is fully at one extreme or other on the introversion-extroversion continuum. And some, too, are borderline--revealing a slight extraversion preference.

Copyright © 2009, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

[1] Ho, L. (2005, September, 23). Top 10 Advantages of Introvert. Retrieved 20 April 2009, from http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/top-10-advantages-of-introvert.html