So next I wanted to talk about how more than how the strengths have changed my life, it’s really what about strengths has changed my life. And it’s really given me language and a
lens to reflect on the day, what went wrong, what went right, why it went wrong and why it went right.

What special abilities do I have and what did, what of those abilities did I use today that made today feel amazing or made today feel bad? What was I trying to do today that wasn’t who I was, wasn’t who I am. And that’s why today was a shit day. And when you first learn about your strengths, you get the list and that helps. But the deep dive is what’s important. And that deep dive,
Linda helped me with that from that full strength. But a lot of that was through self reflection and thinking about it and, you know, just analysing what how the day went and trying to connect events, feelings, motions with my strengths. Journaling helps. Yeah, half the journal. It can be a case of, you know, just quiet reflection internally or talking with people about it. But really the thing that’s locked it in for me is the value exercise where so your strengths, connecting your strengths with your values and your values are how you see the world. It’s from inside out.

It’s your lens for seeing the world. And I was actually quite amazed to see how my strengths actually shape my values, my deeply held personal values.

We get values from a lot of people. We get values from our family, from our religion, from our from society, from law, from the people we hang out with. But, but those values are imposed on us. But there’ll be some values in there that you truly connect with.

And I’m talking 3 or 4 words that you truly connect with. And when you sit down and analyse those in relation to your strengths, you will find more probably than not most likely, that those words are directly related to your top 10 strengths.

So the exercise I propose for you is to get your strengths. Try and find words, a list of words, 12 words. Go through your top 12 strengths and build a list of words, 12 words that are synonymous with those strengths. Try and find words that best fit the strength and best fit how you feel about the world, how you see the world. Once you’ve got that twelve list of 12,
your aim overtime, because it will take time, is to cut down that list to three to five values. And once you have the values, it is very easy at the end of the day to sit there and go,
did I use my values today?

And if you’ve used your values, you’ve used your strengths, and then that’s a good day. So for me my top five strengths are learner, achiever, focus, Futuristic and strategic. Then 6 is intellection and I have significance, command, self, assurance and relater.

And from that 10 I have developed a list of values, 4 values and they are autonomy, curiosity, challenge and authenticity. And so I find if I’m having a day where
I’m ticking those off, at least a couple of those, then I’ll feel like that’s a good day.

But if I have days where I feel I can’t be myself, where I’m not challenged, where I’m dealing with people who aren’t curious or someone’s trying to control me, I lack autonomy. Those are the days where I chafe, where I really have a bad day.

And so that’s why I value the the output of the strengths, learning your strengths, getting deeper on your strengths. The output for me has been the values,
the four values. And that’s how I analyse, review, critique my days and realign my life. So I recommend you do that exercise.

I’ve found it extremely helpful.