If you know only a bit about ISTPs, perhaps through knowing one personally, you’ll come to find that they are sometimes incredibly hard to figure out. They seem grounded and realistic, yet it often feels like they don’t tell you anything, so who knows?
ISTPs are practical, reserved, and love to tinker with anything mechanical. Daydreaming is rare for the pragmatic ISTP, but if they do, it will involve fulfilling their projects or anything risky. They are excellent at leading others during crises and make great engineers, technicians, and mechanics.
Dying to know if the ever mysterious and illusive ISTP is a daydreamer? Well, then read right on!
The Fascinating Traits Of The ISTP Personality
ISTPs, according to the Myers-Briggs Test Indicator, are categorized as Intuitive, Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving. ISTPs are pragmatic, productive, and self-directed, known as the Virtuoso or the Craftsman. They love to tinker and play with everything mechanical, so they are naturally gifted.
The ISTP is incredibly motivated to work on things they care about, yet unlike other types, they prefer to have schedules that aren’t fixed and set in stone. ISTPs like to be spontaneous and approach things without a rigid or predetermined mindset.
As the ISTP is quite impulsive and likes to make decisions with the information they have at hand, it means that they can occasionally be quite stubborn and ignore the input of others. This, in combination with their logically guided mindset, makes them insensitive to others and their emotions.
Practically minded yet creative, the ISTP enjoys figuring out how things work in terms of machinery, engineering, and other related fields. They hate to be stuck doing something the same way, mostly because they feel the need to express their innovations through their actions.
When it comes to facing a crisis, the ISTP is perfected for this role. They are excellent at managing their stress levels and at directing other people. ISTPs love to involve themselves in a little bit of risk or danger, so a stressful situation is no big deal for them.
The ISTP is usually quite open-minded and accepting when it comes to tolerating others. But, if someone opposes or disagrees with the ISTP’s values and beliefs, specifically their objective viewpoint and pragmatism, the ISTP can be quite vocal about their opposition.
Like their namesake, ISTPs are quite introverted and like to keep to themselves most of the time. They also dislike revealing personal or intimate details about themselves and are very selective about who they engage with, so this makes them seem quite enigmatic and aloof.
What Do ISTPs Daydream About?
For ISTPs, their heads are usually filled with schematics and plans for things that have practical uses. Since they are personalities that are not concerned with highly theoretical and abstract matters, this means that they are unlikely to occupy any mental space for ISTPs.
Suppose ISTPs do engage in daydreaming, which tends to be a rarity for this personality. In that case, they love to think about engaging in high-risk hobbies such as motorcycling, bungee jumping, paragliding, spelunking, sky diving, and racing.
Curious, adventurous, and flexible, the ISTJ yearns to escape the mundane, but rather by action than by being mired away in their own dreams. They often don’t understand those that aren’t as grounded as they are, to the extent that they might come across as unlikeable.
Rather, ISTPs are mentally occupied when it comes to producing something that has tangible results. However, they hate to be constrained by rules. This means that they are heavily represented in positions that involve construction and involve highly technical things.
How ISTPs Interact With Others
As ISTPs are the type of personality to engage in spur-of-the-moment actions and hate to be bogged down by the same routine, it often makes them too flighty to be involved in long-term relationships. Therefore, their sense of commitment to romantic partners is often in question.
When it comes to intimacy with both romantic partners and friends, the ISTP likes to keep their cards close to their chest. They like to have the time to be within their own space, away from the prying eyes of others. This makes disclosing emotions and personal struggles quite difficult for ISTPs.
Since ISTPs are not risk-averse, they often engage in boundary-pushing, which can occasionally involve the boundaries of other people. This, coupled with their insensitivity and introversion, can further isolate this personality.
ISTPs like to form bonds with others that typically have the same interests as they do or through sharing common environments, whether through work, schooling, or religious institutions. They hate to force themselves into social situations to make friends, rather preferring to form relationships naturally.
What Careers Are Best Suited To ISTPs?
ISTPs are well-suited to working roles whereby they can exercise their independence and give expertise and assistance to their colleagues when needed. They are lone wolves who enjoy having the time and space to accomplish their own set goal.
As ISTPs like to work on things that involve producing immediate outcomes, they are best suited to problem-solving or troubleshooting jobs such as being a member of an IT department or anything to do with engineering or plumbing.
They are responsible and ambitious, and their niche is efficiency. Therefore the ISTP is unlikely to forget their responsibilities or procrastinate. They love to get down and dirty when it comes to their passions, so work that is suited to these is likely to produce desirable results.
So, the ISTP is ultimately best suited to careers in technology, finance, engineering, science, and construction-related fields. Examples include software analysts, military officers, mechanics, economists, machinists, air traffic controllers, mechanics, geologists, electrical engineers, etc.
Fascinating Facts About ISTPs
ISTPs are the third most common MBTI personality type, occurring at a rate of 5 % amongst the general population. The ISTP personality is more than four times more likely to occur amongst men than in women at the rates of 9% and 2%, respectively.
This personality is the lowest ranked personality when it comes to possessing socially based coping mechanisms when it comes to periods of difficulty or stress. Perhaps correlational, this also coincides with the information that ISTPs are more likely than most personalities to have heart problems.
On personality test measures, the ISTP often scores as resourceful, critical, detached, and dependent. Their personal values tend to be measured as Achievement, Autonomy, Stability of Values, and Independence.
This personality is one of the most likely personalities to have a low sense of personal satisfaction in their marriage, most likely due to their fear of commitment and of being tied down. This also relates to the fact that ISTPs are some of the types found least likely to complete college.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the ISTP is practical, objective, flexible, and spontaneous. You would be right to assume that they would hate to waste time daydreaming, but this is not always the truth. After all, the ISTP is ambitious and loves to take risks, so it’s natural for even ISTPs to daydream sometimes.
