“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it
living someone else’s life.”
Steve Jobs
Harnessing the power of who we are requires three things:
1. Being clear about our own value. 2. Knowing the powerful, unique strengths we possess. 3. Using that understanding to guide our daily choices.
It’s time to put what you’ve learned to work.
Your “I Am” statement consolidated who you know you are into one place. Before you finish Step #3, you’ll have accomplished the same consolidation of your Strengths.
Together they will both work as levers that push your daily decisions towards fulfilling, connected pursuits.
Step #1. It’s Your Life, Make It Yours- A Quick Recap:
In Step #1 you created your “I Am” statement.
It’s ongoing purpose is provide an easy, clear way to repeatedly remind you of what you value about being you.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of keeping this clear.
One of the easiest ways we can get lost as individuals is by losing site of the value of who we uniquely are.
This is our identity, our own gold standard for our value. It’s what drives us to keep contributing and adding value to the lives around us, especially when times are hard.
Everyday when you start your day and every evening before you go to sleep, play the recording of you reminding you of what you value about you.
Repetition embeds belief, and this is you giving your subconscious a clear directive that this is what you value and these are the priorities you want your life to be connected to.
Step #2. Create Your “Strengths” Statement
If you’re a subscriber, you may have already completed this worksheet. If not, no worries. It’s time to turn all the detail in your Strengths assessment into your second working tool. This one will help you use more of your strengths everyday and act as a guide for your life long decision making. Really. Download the Essential Strengths Worksheet below. It contains the form and instructions to create this invaluable life tool.
When you have filled in the Worksheet, the final box on the sheet will become a second tool, a “go to” measuring stick, to help you guide daily decision making.
By keeping yourself present to the strengths that leverage your greatest opportunities to excel, you start changing how you spend your time each day.
Creating this awareness also means:
If an opportunity will help you develop one of your top strengths, other things considered, it should rate high towards a “Yes.”
This consistent “perspective” check keeps you present to where you’re most likely to excel in anything you do.
It starts changing how you perceive the world (and how it begins to perceive you.)
Putting your “Strengths” statement in your view.
Now that you have completed your final Strengths statement, the mission is to put this reminder where you’ll keep “accidentally” reading it.
Like on your desk at home and at work (maybe in a cool looking frame), or on the home page of your Note App. or record it and listen to it randomly during the day (or at a set time), write it on a piece of paper you pull out of your wallet when you reach for a credit card or cash, make a poster for your wall…
You get the idea. Look at your own natural patterns and put it in the flow of what you do to keep your “Strengths” statement in your awareness everyday.
Use your “Strengths” statement when you decide what to put on your daily “To Do” list.
When deciding what you need to get done, using your “Strengths” statement as a guide will help you quickly decide what tasks to do yourself…. and what items to delegate, decline or find / hire someone else to do, if they’re things clearly outside your Strengths Profile.
However, don’t use your profile as an excuse to simply not do things you don’t like to do.
There will always be things we still must do, even if they’re not a natural fit.
When that’s true, look for a creative angle to leverage your natural strengths in some way to still get it done. There’s always a way and doing so makes that “drag” task easier to get through.
What’s For Dinner?
Here’s a personal example:
My wife always took responsibility for planning and making meals.
But she works a much less flexible schedule than I do.
Even though I was never “into cooking,” it suddenly (finally?) dawned on me that it was crazy she was coming home from work around dinner time and then taking on making dinner.
So one night I asked her: “How about I take over planning and making dinner from now on, starting tomorrow?”
After being momentarily stunned that I wanted to take this on, she almost instantly said ” Yes, that would be really wonderful!”
I knew that what I was doing was the right thing, but how was I going to “get into” cooking?
It seemed like a steep climb, until I looked at how I could leverage my strengths to create a way to “get into” it.
One of my strengths is “transforming something strong into something superb.”
So I thought, “What could I do to make creating meals engaging to me, if it wasn’t purely an interest in making food?”
My solution: Make every meal “look” beautiful.
I decided to make the appearance of every plated dish the focus, creating a visual composition for each meal, especially as I was learning healthy combinations and how to work with flavors.
Now, almost two years later, I make our dinners at least five days a week, and have removed the pressure of this core necessity from my wonderful wife’s “To Do” list.
Plus, I get to surprise her every evening with a new, creative, visually engaging (and most times good tasting) meal that I’m proud of.
To paraphrase Thomas Edison: “The moment you think you’ve exhausted all the possibilities, you haven’t.”
There are many other areas in life where intentionally leveraging who you “Are” and using your natural strengths can make a real difference in creating powerful results.
Your Perspective Guides Your Decisions
If you’re looking for the next place in the world you can make a valuable difference, or about to go into the job market, using your “I Am” and “Strengths” profiles as a “perspective” tool can significantly improve the odds of finding work that’s a better match to you.
Suggestion #1: If it’s your Wealth/Career you want to transform – Using your new “insights” as the foundation, re-write your resume/CV to reflect and demonstrate what you Value and your Strengths throughout that document.
Most resume’s are not crafted as a reflection of a person’s core natural strengths, but are more of an accomplishments list bent to fit a specific job.
But when you’re clear about who you are and your dominant strengths, and start your job search from that knowledge, the job descriptions you align yourself towards and the resume you create can change significantly.
One of the most valuable reasons to have your presentation of you be a reflection of your strengths and what you value is to significantly increase the odds of being hired into a job that inherently needs your natural strengths to succeed.
How different would it be if you went into a job interview able to clearly present your ability to succeed in the position based upon it’s match to your specific, documented, natural strengths?
What jobs would you rule out, even if your experience qualified you, because you were clear the job description did not substantially match with your strengths?
And there’s so much more…..
Suggestion #2: If it’s your Health you want to improve – Look for models of healthy lifestyles that naturally engage more of your strengths in their activities and pick one from those. By connecting to a proven system that is more aligned with your strengths, you’ll more easily achieve the vitality you desire.
Suggestion #3: If it’s a deeper sense of Spirituality – Search for readings, resources and tools that best connect you with your strengths and who you know your self to be.
Look for ones also designed around your natural Visual, Auditory or Touch orientation.
For example, if you remember information better that you see, buy a physical book or watch a video. If you connect better when things are spoken, listen to the book through services like Audible.com.
Or if Touch has the most impact, attend a play where you get to meet the actors after the show and physically interact with them.
Connecting through your most naturally accessible channel(s) will help you make a connection faster and in a deeper, more resonant way.
Any area of life you want to improve will develop faster when you intentionally leverage your natural strengths, and a clear vision of who you are, to help you produce results.
Success and happiness are the result of intentional efforts.
Keep present to who you are and use your natural strengths as the tools you were uniquely given to help you succeed.
This is how you intentionally live through your Strengths.
That’s where fulfillment comes from and more importantly, the feeling of
Living A Life That Love’s You Back™.
Here’s to the beginning of your amazing journey!
And we’ll be here with articles, tools, and inspiration to help you create a life that is matters to you.
Never stop moving forward.
Cheers,
Next Steps: When you’re clear about where you want to go, you’ll quickly realize it’s time to start trading in unhelpful patterns (habits), for ones that benefit you.
And… it’s usually challenging.
But there are effective ways to replace those habits and they don’t require superpowers to succeed.
In fact, it’s usually easier and faster to intentionally create a more beneficial habit that you focus on and leave the old behavior to wither from disuse.
Here are two books I found really insightful, that will likely open your mind to how to make the embedded Habit tool we’ve all been given, work intentionally and powerfully for you.
“Better Than Before – Mastering The Habits of Our Everyday Lives” by Gretchen Rubin.
Gretchen Rubin is a best selling author with a great approach to doing exactly that to create lasting change.
You can read or listen to (Audible) how we can use our built in “automation” systems to drive new default behaviors. Ones that we choose to create for our benefit.
You can “Look Inside” to check it out here:
Another great book I found uses a “Here’s the problem, here’s the habit I created to solve it” format. It’s written from a millennial’s perspective:
It’s also available to read (or listen to in Audible) and is a rich resource of methods and recommendations you can put to use immediately.
You can take a look inside the book here:
You’ll find a variety of other resources available in our Tools For Change and Tools For Living sections to help support your journey.
We’ll continue to add more articles, books, and other quality resources every week.
And Please Share Your Insights!
You can reach us at: AskUs@ThePowerOfIntentionalLiving.com
Your recommendations, feedback or thoughts on other ways we can support you living through your strengths are invaluable.
Never stop moving forward.
Cheers,