Introvert habits that are misunderstood

Hello and welcome to the the the travelling introvert want to talk about some habits that a lot of introverts might have. And to be honest, most of the time they are misunderstood. Like most things about introverts, there's a lot of misinformation out there or people make assumptions about things. For example, if you work in an office you might want to have lunch by yourself and your coworkers might see you as being unfriendly or not being part of the team because you wish to recharge by having lunch by yourself. Yet I know so many introverts tell me about how they go in their car to eat lunch or go in their car and drive around the corner so people don't come and knock on their window in the car.

I myself used to go and sleep in my friend's car to start with. I used to work very close to where I lived so I would walk home, nap and go back to work. I'd even feel better off not eating food because I napped. And then when I worked a little further away, I would actually ask to borrow my friends car keys because it was nice and warm and sunny so I could go and sleep in their car for half an hour. But a lot of people see this as being rude or why wouldn't you want to eat with the team or with other people?

It's not that we don't want to, it's just normally that is a really good time for introverts to recharge their battery. Then there's if you are working in remotely right now, wanting to sometimes just not have your camera on for zoom calls, introverts and extroverts all people talk about zoom fatigue. Do you remember the world before zoom? In the world before zoom we had confidence calls. At no point was video a thing, right?

You'd have this thing in the middle of the table and everyone would dial in using their phone and you would have a conference call. Yes. The bad side was people would talk over each other but it was half as exhausting as being on video all the time. So why is it now that people think it's rude or you're not paying attention when you are not on video in a zinc or it's just like being on the phone. It's almost like we've forgotten how to do that.

It doesn't mean you're unsociable, it's just some people will find that it is a lot of stimulation looking at all the faces or just looking at yourself for hours on end. Then there's wearing headphones at work. If you are in an office you might use headphones to cut out the noise to help you concentrate and do deep work. Or just maybe you just like listening to music. It helps you get into the groove of working more.

Again, this can be misconstrued as you not wanting to talk to people and not wanting people to interrupt you because you're too good to talk to everyone. But reality is probably just a really good way to help you focus. So these are just a couple of things that we talk about when people assume certain things about things that introverts might do to help them recharge. Now, it doesn't make us rude. It just means that we know what we need to keep our batteries charged and people should respect that and maybe just ask a question, but not in a derogatory or accusing way.

Then there's also sort of like small talk and wanting to go out for drinks after work. Yes, sometimes that might be great, but if we've just spent 8 hours in and out of meetings around people and then you want us to go and spend another two or 3 hours talking and drinking with people, it might be too much. Our battery might already be drained and spending more time with you would drain our battery further. So we don't necessarily want to do that. And a lot of people say that this is prime, like bonding time for the team when you're out of work and you can let your hair down and talk about to be honest, you talk about work.

So after having 8 hours a day doing that at work, why would you necessarily want to go and do it in your recharge stroke spare time? So this is again one of those times where people just jump to conclusions about what helps and works for different humans to help them just be better at work and be better in their lives. I would love to tell listeners what is one thing that you do in your work environment that people question or misconstrue? Please email me at janice@thecareerintrovertcom and let me know. Thank you for listening.

As I said, this is Janice, the career introvert helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.