Summary: This article explains how to dress when your Eternal Child, the third function in your Myers-Briggs type, wonders how other people will respond. It covers what that wondering is, why everyone feels it, and a more specific source of validation.
Why Do I Still Wonder What Other People Think of What I’m Wearing?
The standard formula for how to dress checks an outfit against a rulebook of what is flattering, what is appropriate, and what is current. An outfit can pass every item on that rulebook in the mirror and then still go out the door with a question attached: how is this going to land with other people?
That wondering belongs to your Eternal Child, the third function in your Myers-Briggs type. In Personality Hacker’s car model, the third function is the 10-year-old. In John Beebe’s model of eight cognitive functions, it is the Eternal Child archetype.
The Eternal Child sits on the axis of relating to others, so it looks to other people for validation. Everyone feels uncertain in their third function and seeks validation there. This is a normal feature of the third function.
Which part of how you show up do you only trust once someone else has approved of it?
How Each Third Function Can Wonder
No single statement covers the whole range of what a function could be wondering, so each row below is one possibility. Each row names the function, the types that have it in the third spot, and a question that type might be wondering.
| Third function | Types | What you might wonder |
| Extraverted Sensing (Se) | ENTJ, ENFJ | Will this make an impact? |
| Introverted Sensing (Si) | INFP, INTP | Is this too far outside normal? |
| Extraverted Intuition (Ne) | ESTJ, ESFJ | Am I dressed for every possibility? |
| Introverted Intuition (Ni) | ISFP, ISTP | What are they making of me? |
| Extraverted Feeling (Fe) | ENTP, ESTP | Will this fit the group vibe? |
| Introverted Feeling (Fi) | INTJ, ISTJ | Will this look like a costume? |
| Extraverted Thinking (Te) | ENFP, ESFP | Does this read as in charge? |
| Introverted Thinking (Ti) | INFJ, ISFJ | Will this show I know what I’m doing? |
(The first row is mine, since Extraverted Sensing is my third function.) ENFPs and ESFPs may or may not want to read as in charge, and they can still be unsure about it.
Episode 77 lists each type’s third function along with its wardrobe patterns. The third function (technically called tertiary) is often a source of our neuroses, but it’s influence should be limited when it comes to guiding how to dress.
How to Dress Your Eternal Child Playful
My Personality Style Blueprints come with personality profiling in The Congruence Code, and you can buy one separately here if you already know your type and feel sure about it. My suggestion is that the third function is a place of playfulness. If it is going to be the majority of your outfit, that look will be really great for play and for time spent with loved ones. If it makes you happy, you can add a wink of this function to your everyday or professional outfits.
Getting Comfortable With Uncertainty
I have been thinking about another way to approach the validation this function seeks. In the car model, the functions in the backseat are uncertain. In Beebe’s model, the Eternal Child is on the axis of relating to others, so it looks to other people for validation. Awareness of that alone helps you maintain choice. Whenever you feel the uncertainty rise up, you can recognize that this is normal and then make your decision independent of it. Humans are really uncomfortable with uncertainty, and you’ll have more choice in your life if you get comfortable with it.
A more powerful way of overcoming this uncertainty is to look to God for validation. I think most people who have a relationship with God want that, and realizing that the uncertainty is in your personality can help with it. Most people go back and forth. They want God’s approval to be enough, and they still look for approval from other people.
A lot of people recommend general identity statements for dealing with that uncertainty. You’ve probably heard that you can get your identity from God, with statements like I’m a child of God. Those are valuable, and more specificity seems even more valuable to me. To grow up confident in who you are, you need to have it mirrored to you who you are and how you are unique, and to have a specific identity.
I first heard the idea that the word identity could be used in relating to God, in the sense of a specific, unique identity, in Jamie Winship’s book Living Fearless, which I totally recommend and you can use my affiliate link to buy it on Amazon. When I went through that book and prayed, I did hear an identity, but that’s not the one I’m going to talk about today.
The Goats
After that, maybe a year later, I went to a prayer training where we were learning the practice of listening prayer. We were in triads, same gender, and we took turns. All three of us would listen for one person, then share what we heard, then pray for that person, and then listen for the next.
One of the people I was praying with, when she was listening for me, kept seeing different iterations of goats, and they were always playful. First it was goats. Then she asked, God, is there more? It was goat yoga. (I don’t remember if she said goats in trees, but I know that’s a thing, too.) She asked if there was more, and there was: downtown in Spokane, we have a garbage-eating goat. It’s a metal sculpture.
I prayed for a month or more without any idea what this was about. Then I got a World Vision catalog in the mail, and it had two adorable felt goat ornaments on the front. When I opened it up, their names were Beloved and Playful. I instantly knew this was a prophetic identity statement for me, that God was calling me Beloved and Playful.
Uncertainty belongs to the third function, and a specific identity gives it somewhere to rest.
Visual Identity: How to Dress as Who You Are
There’s a myth that caring about how you dress is vain. Visual identity is who you look like you are, and I believe looking like who you are is a human right that frees up mental energy for your calling. A specific identity statement, like my Beloved and Playful, gives the Eternal Child an answer before it reaches the mirror, so that you can wear who you are.
Knowing who you are is the most effective way to learn how to dress when your Eternal Child cognitive function wants approval. When the wondering at the front door has an answer, you’re free to be seen as who you are. What could you bring into the room when you walk in with complete confidence that you look like who you actually are?
Here’s something simple you can do this week to integrate these principles into your wardrobe. Choose one small thing that makes you feel playful that you can add to any outfit. It can be one item, like a pocket watch, or a category, like fun socks, which some Ti-dominant people I have known really liked. One of my own favorites is a Pantone pin. It’s blank, with just a white frame around it, so if I put it on any garment, the color of the garment is Pantone’s color of the year.
After reading this article you may understand the Eternal Child as a framework and still wonder how it applies to the clothes hanging in your own closet. A Style System Synthesis call is a collaborative conversation where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out what’s missing, which closes that gap. If you would like to explore it together, you are invited to book a free 30 minute call here.