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It was announced with great fanfare at the beginning of this year: 2021 will be the year of the introvert. Time to look back to see if that prediction has come true.
The Dutch Psychologie Magazine conducted a survey last year among 1,349 readers and followers on social media. This showed that introverted people more often experience the lockdowns and corona measures as positive than more extroverted people. As many as 60 percent of introverts felt calmer, more relaxed and less overstimulated as a result of the loss of social activities. More than three quarters of introverts can cope with the lockdown and only thirteen percent of introverts missed drinks, dinners and parties (see Psychologie Magazine of December 2020)
Several people I coached last year also indicated this. Especially in the period when everything went back to 'normal', they sometimes missed the peace and calm of the period before that. They noticed that their agenda was fuller than they actually wanted, so that they had too little time for themselves. Still, this is only half the story, if you ask me.
Because yes, it is certainly true that introverts need time to themselves every now and then. And yes, they don't always find drinks, dinners and parties easy. But at the core, introverts also need social contact, albeit in a much more measured way than extroverts. If measures take too long, introverts may also feel less comfortable with them, simply because they have too little social contact. Or because they feel limited in the options for their alone time.
Introverted examples
As far as I'm concerned, it is a bit too simplistic to say that 2021 was the year of the introvert because of corona. But there are certainly other things that show that more attention was paid to introversion in the past year. For example, famous Dutch celebrities such as Iris Hond, Sanne Samina Hanssen, Nazmiye Oral and Evgeniy Levchenko openly admitted that they are introverted.
I also noticed that there was a lot of media attention for introversion last year. My book Introverted Leadership was due for a second printing in no time and I received numerous requests from companies this year to come and tell more about it. Introverts as well as ambiverts and extroverts followed the workshops they organised, which resulted in greater mutual understanding. It seems that the time is slowly coming to add personality to the discussion about diversity.
However, there are certainly still some steps to be taken. For the introvert, to recognize his introverted qualities even better, and for the environment, to give those more space. As far as I'm concerned, we're not going to stick to just one year for the introvert, but we'll continue to draw more attention to introversion for a much longer period of time. My work is only finished when the power of the introvert can be fully expressed. I look forward to working on that again next year.
How do you view the past year as an introvert? I look forward to hearing from you. Let me know via a comment on social media or send me a message at info@quietquality.org
