Episode 226: Lift with Your Strengths
Introduction
Welcome back to Live Free Creative Podcast. You’re listening to episode number 226, Lift with Your Strength. This is an episode that I am excited to share with you today as I’m learning in real time the importance of using our strengths in myriad ways in our lives.
Character Strengths
You may notice that my Happy Class episode last weekend referred to this idea of character strengths. Today I’m going to talk a little bit more about it, dig in a little deeper, and hopefully give you some practical examples of using your strengths in important ways and leaning into those rather than focusing on what you’re not great at or what you feel like you don’t have natural ability in. Letting those things be while you focus on what’s going well, while you focus on the strengths in yourself and in others.
Segment: Odd Jobs
As I get started today, I thought I’d share a fun segment called Odd Jobs. I thought I was done with this, and then as I was walking into the podcast studio this morning, I realized that I’ve acquired another little odd job that I’m super excited. I’m going to tell you all about it.
One reason I might not have thought of this as an odd job as I’ve gone through, I don’t know, 20 or 30 different jobs over the last four and a half years of this show is that I don’t technically get paid.
So, I guess it’s more of an odd favor that I like to do from time to time. I am a part-time amateur floral designer and have been for years and I love it.
Most of my floral design happens at home for myself. However, I have had several fun opportunities to do floral design for others that and other types, like creative installations as well.
One of my first creative installations that included florals was years ago. I was hired by Bumble. So, I was paid in this instance by Bumble the app to create a photo backdrop for one of their events.
And I, at the time, was making these big floral flowers. So, I was making giant sized flowers out of paper, and I made a dozen or more of these giant flowers, and I installed them at the site, and then I also added fresh florals and greens to sort of bring the whole thing to life.
Also, I have a link to the DIY for these giant flowers that I created. Probably nine, eight or nine years ago, and there’s a full DIY on my blog if you’re interested, coming up for Mother’s Day or for springtime. They’re great for baby showers, for weddings, for all sorts of things.
A few years after that, I went to Alt Summit and I had applied to create a photo backdrop using balloons and this swinging chair. Once we had all the, the balloons blown up and tied together and linked around the chair, then I went ahead and added florals and greens as well to this whimsical installment was so beautiful.
Woodland Wedding Florals
I have had a couple opportunities to do flowers for weddings, and this is like the pinnacle most fun for me. I had my good friend’s daughter get married and she had some plants and some other things that they were using, and I volunteered to have an odd favor of doing the fresh floral arrangements.
They included beautiful little peony and fern and rose arrangements that we planted underneath the wood chips because her daughter had this ring ceremony out in the woods. It was this real fairyland magical, where the fresh flowers that I had arranged looked like they were growing out of the aisle.
I also made these pretty floral crowns for the flower girls. It was so fun and just kind of pulling together all these things that I love and. Feeling like I can express this creative outlet.
40th Birthday Party Dinner
Last week I made some fun little arrangements for my own 40th birthday party. I had this beautiful sit-down dinner and arranged different types of flowers and the colors that matched the vibe and the invitation and everything along this u-shaped table for my dinner. It was really, fun and I’m glad that I did it.
More Wedding Flowers Upcoming
Upcoming next weekend, I will be do the flowers for another friend’s wedding. She is a good friend from the gym, and we were chatting about her upcoming numbs and the details. And I love weddings and I love events, and all the pieces just feel so fun to me.
And she said, the only thing that we don’t really have nailed down is the florist or of flowers. And I said, if you are up for having an amateur florist. I will step in and do that for you. I would love to, and I feel like it’s a gift to me to give me the opportunity to create these fun arrangements and installations for the event.
I’ve been involved in the ordering of the flowers. She had liked a vision board with her wedding planner of all the things. I’m going to come in and create the floral arrangements for the tables and for the backdrop for the actual ceremony. And I’ve been giddy thinking about.
After I offered to help with the flowers for this wedding, I told Dave it doesn’t make sense on paper at all because I have so many things going on in life right now. I have an event coming up. I’m traveling a lot in March. I have full-time school. I’ve got the kids; I’ve got my business and all these different aspects of life. And when this idea popped into my head to sort of offer my services for this wedding, it was a whole body YES.
It was like the thing that felt the most fun and the most exciting to me to do, and I’m learning as I get older and as I get a little bit more intuitive to trust those things that it doesn’t have to make sense, and it’s okay for me to put other things down for a while. To let the thing that feels like it’s going to fill me with energy and with vitality and with joy, have a place in the forefront of my life.
Odd florist, odd job florist coming up. In fact, I mentioned last week that I have had a couple fun ideas for a new business venture, and one of them involves flowers. Maybe I’ll be turning this part-time odd favor into possibly a part-time venture. A small business in a meaningful and thoughtful way. I’m excited to explore the avenues a little further before I dive all the way in, but I’m feeling excited about that. My current odd job is an odd favor of being a part-time favor florist. Maybe at some point in the future it will be more than just an odd favor and possibly become.
Main Show: Lift with your Strengths
I want to tell you about when I learned to rock climb. This was years ago. Probably not when I learned, but when I really got into it. I learned to rock, climb young. I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, in a city surrounded by mountains.
I have a very outdoors oriented family, and so from the time I was young, probably 6, 8, 10, I could put on a harness. I learned to do that cool double overhand knot that you use as you’re getting started, and then climb a little bit here and there with my dad. Mostly with my dad, sometimes with friends and family.
When I got to college, that was when I really dug in. I started to rock climb partially because of the beauty of flow. Being able to be there present only and not have any interruptions and time would sort of warp into where I was just there like in the vortex trying to just reach for the next hold on the wall.
I learned quickly when I started getting more interested in rock climbing, that I much preferred bouldering, which is rock climbing closer to the ground. You don’t have to use ropes. You often put down what’s called a crash pad so that if you do fall, that you don’t land on the dirt.
In a gym, often the floors are bouncy, and you don’t go above maybe 10 or 12 feet. When you’re scaling a higher wall, normally you would be roped in. There’s lots of different kinds of climbing, and in fact, if you’re interested in rock climbing or in just being riveted on the edge of your seat, you could watch a movie about when Alex Honnold, who is an incredible rock climber, free solo a big mountain called El Capitan in the Yosemite Valley.
Free Solo is the name of the show, documentary about it, and it’s fascinating. It’s so fun to watch. Even if you aren’t interested in rock climbing, it’s like beyond. This is, anyway, so I highly recommend Free Solo.
Let me get back too little old 18, 19-year-old Miranda in the rock-climbing gym in Provo, Utah using rock climbing as a stress reliever as a coping mechanism. I was going through a breakup and just needed to be able to focus on something other than what was happening in my real life.
Something that you’ll learn if you, if you are a rock climber, you get into rock climbing or that rock climbers are, it’s, it’s a cool community.
People are friendly and interactive, especially in bouldering, where often you can go by yourself and so you’ll be climbing, working on a problem. You may spend a whole day like three or four hours working on one problem.
I would go by myself and oftentimes have, you know, random strangers, climbers who were there, offer tips and suggestions. And one of the times someone told me, you’ve got to lift with your legs.
Now imagine hanging on a rock wall, and so you’ve got your arms like clasping on, you’re clutching onto these holds or onto the rock itself, and you’re sort of hanging there and your feet are on holds as well, and you’re just trying to reach for that next hold.
You’re trying to just go up a little bit. My instinct was to use my arms. Pull myself up like a pull up so that I could get high enough to reach that next hold. And this friendly neighborhood rock climber stood behind me for a little while and, and watched and said, you know what, you’re not really using your legs.
You need to stand up and use the strength in your legs. And of course, my legs are four, five times stronger than my arms, my little chicken arms up there hanging on training so hard to like, ugh, use all that strength in my arms. Trusted in the strength of my legs where I had much more strength and I allowed myself to stand up tall on those knees that had been bent, come out of that crouch position.
I had three more feet that I could reach just using the strength in my legs, extending through that strength, I was able to climb higher and more easily than if I was using my arms.
This metaphor came to me over the last few weeks as I’ve been studying strengths, how when we use our strengths, we get further and are more satisfied with our lives than if we focus on building up what might otherwise be weaknesses.
Here’s the truth about my body and most human bodies and rock climbing, I could work on building the strength in my arms for a decade and they would still never be as strong as the strength in my legs. Just the way that we are built, the way that I’m built physiologically, my bicep strength will never exceed the strength of my quads unless I was injured or something.
Where I’m naturally strong is where I can rely on that strength for lift. When we lift with our strength, everything is easier, everything gets higher, and gets better. This might seem kind of obvious, but I want you to think about your life growing up and some of the messages you may have heard about strengths and weaknesses.
Do You Focus on Weaknesses or Strengths?
One thing that I know for sure is that. Have an ingrained idea that using my strengths or talking about my strengths or focusing on my strengths is a little bit arrogant, that there’s some pride or like lack of humility in knowing what you’re good at and being okay with that, like being excited about it and using those things.
Does it feel that way for you? Did you ever get a message around not focusing on your strengths, not leaning into your strengths, not talking about them, not using them fully so that you didn’t come across like a showoff? I’m just curious if that was your experience as well. Another thing that I realize may be very particular to me and the religious culture that I was brought up in.
Learned repeatedly about how my weaknesses would make me strong. That if I focused on my weakness and built it up, that then I could be equally strong, like across all my, my character and all my life. In fact, it was, this is sort of anecdotal, but I grew up in a fully volunteer run organization.
When you went to church on Sunday, the teachers and the classes were volunteers. The men who were leading the congregation were volunteers. The music leader and the choir, and the people who cleaned the building, everyone were volunteers. You can imagine in a large organization where there is hierarchy and there’s different types of leadership roles.
There’s some planning, there’s some parties, there’s some events, there’s some actual speaking and teaching. There’s some music. There’s all these different, working with different ages. There’s like a, a young, young group called nursery that’s like the babies, and then there’s people with the school age kids, and then with the teenagers and then with the adults.
And you can imagine across an organization like that, there are lots of different opportunities to volunteer. Now as an adult, I think about how that is a great opportunity for people to use their strengths in meaningful ways. What most often happened, or what I saw happen a lot growing up, and I really sort of took this on and assumed this idea, was that people were placed in roles within the organization. So, you didn’t necessarily volunteer, you were asked to participate or received a calling is what is the verbiage. You would be called into a particular role and then expected to fulfill that role as a volunteer. You didn’t choose those roles. They were put upon you, or you were invited into them, and often people would be invited into roles that really didn’t fit their comfort zone at all and maybe didn’t play to their strengths in.
Obvious ways, and the message that I heard over and repeatedly was that we’re putting this person in this role so that the thing that they’re not good at, they can get better at. And even for myself, often when I was put in a role that I was a little bit uncomfortable with or felt like, gosh, I could be really doing a great job somewhere else, I would hear this is where we need you because this is a, an opportunity for you to work on things that you’re not very good at.
Of course, there are some things in our lives that it would be helpful for us to become better at. And in organizations that need volunteers, it’s, you know, probably unlikely that you’re going to be able to nail the strengths every time. I will say that when there’s a big mismatch between what naturally good at what you feel are your strengths and where you feel comfortable and confident, you’re probably less likely to be engaged to feel fulfilled, satisfied, or content, or enjoy the role itself. And it may cause some, some dissonance. You may feel like, I really want to like this thing, but I just, I just don’t, and I think that that’s okay.
In fact, one of the things that I’ve been studying and digging into as part of school is this organizational project where we’re working with an organization. Help create a workshop training program—XYZ, something to help them reach their goals. And in the case of my group and the organization we’re working with, one of the things that we’re facing is burnout and stress within a job position. In all the articles that I’ve read, one of the things that’s highlighted repeatedly is fit is the person who’s hired fit, naturally fit for the role that they’ve taken on.
And if not, there’s, there may not be a lot that you can do. It might just be a mismatch if someone’s natural strengths and interests are not aligned with the role that they choose or are given., then that might be the root of the problem. Not that you need to teach them more or that they need to change in some way, but that we’re mismatching a strength for a role.
And one way that we can avoid or overcome that is to first, get clear on what our strengths are as individuals, and then seek out opportunities to use those strength in meaningful. I want you to think about for a second what you’re naturally good at or interested in. What are some of the things that just feel like you?
They feel fun, they feel joyful, they feel easy. In some ways, those things may represent some of your strengths. There’s also lots of different ways to. Gather more information if you don’t have that. Just like beginning awareness or self-awareness. Some of them are personality tests. I know that when I was in junior high and high school, there were some fun personality tests that we did.
Myers-Briggs is one that comes to mind. I’m an ENFJ. In the Myers-Briggs world, there was a color coding one where I was a Red/Blue. More recently, I’ve been interested in Enneagram. I’m in Enneagram Seven. For those of you who know the Enneagram, that’s the adventure and it just feels like. I got to know myself better when I learned more about the Enneagram and gained some new understandings of myself.
VIA Character Strengths
And then most recently, I’ve really loved learning more about my specific character strengths through the Via Character Strengths Survey and the Via Institute. This is firmly in the science of wellbeing world. It’s a positive psychology arm that has been developed over the last 30 years and has empirically supported research around not only what are some of the key character strengths, but also the questions are peer reviewed and have gone through rigorous research.
And so, you can feel comfortable taking the free VIA survey that the results that come up for you are fairly. Accurate, fairly correlated to what’s going on for you. You may recognize yourself as you do this, and if you haven’t ever taken a character Strengths survey, I want to encourage you and invite you, like I did last week in Happy Class.
If you listen to the Happy Class episodes, I invited you. Then I want to invite you again. To go to the viainstitute.org and take the free survey and find out a little bit more about yourself. The character strengths on the VIA survey come up in a ranked order from your highest or strongest. The top five would be considered your signature strengths down to your lower end.
These are still all strengths, however, there’s 24 of them. I’m going to go through them quickly and I want you to just think. Reading off the character strengths themselves, I want you to think about which ones resonate with you as what, feel like your higher strengths and what feel like your lower strengths, and then I’m curious to see how well aligned those are.
Your intuition with your actual results. Here they are in alphabetical order, appreciation of beauty and excellence, bravery, creativity, curiosity., fairness, forgiveness, gratitude, honesty, hope, humility, humor, judgment, kindness, leadership, love, love of learning, perseverance. Perspective, prudence, self-regulation, social intelligence, spirituality, teamwork, and zest.
One thing that’s interesting to note is that these strengths are organized by type, so there are strengths of wisdom. Strengths of courage, strengths of humanity, strengths of justice, strengths of temperance, and strengths of transcendence. It probably won’t be a surprise to you that my signature strengths all fall within wisdom and transcendence, and my lowest five, most of them fall within strengths of temperance.
I’m not great at temperance. Now, here’s where it becomes important to lift with our strengths, knowing what my highest strengths., curiosity, creativity, gratitude, spirituality, and love of learning. Helps me to understand myself and make decisions where my strengths can be best employed. How can I exercise the strengths of curiosity and creativity in my work?
Understanding a little bit more about my strengths explains to me and helps me understand why my business, which has been so fun and interesting to run over the last 15 years, has also had. 10 different iterations that it doesn’t look the same. I didn’t choose something and just keep doing that same thing.
I’m curious and creative and I love to learn and so I use those strengths as I adjust and shifts and sometimes totally abandon something to try something else. That idea of not sticking with the same thing forever or not niching down to like one thing to be very good at always felt like a weakness to me.
My Strength: Being A Jane of All Trades
I grew up and often said that I was a Jane of all trades and a master of none. I took golf lessons. I was yellow belted in Tae Kwon Do. At one point. I played tennis. I was on the drill team. I did the service-learning club. I love to ski and taught snowboard instructing.
And I’ve talked to you through, you know, 25, 30 odd jobs that I’ve had in my 40 years of life, probably in 30 years. Cause I don’t think I had a first job until I was about 10 working at my dad’s office. the idea that I didn’t ever get good at one thing, but I was like pretty good at a, a bunch of things.
Always felt like I must have done something wrong, like I missed the boat. And if I would’ve just picked something and stuck with it, that I would’ve excelled even further or greater than I have, and understanding that strengths are my ability to pivot and to learn and to change, and to grow and be flexible and creative rather than feeling like I’m not doing it right.
I can embrace those things and enjoy the process of really leaning into what I’m good at and seeing how that benefits me and people around me. Because when I show up in my strength, I’m giving the best of myself to every role that I think it’s fun and important to learn about ourselves so that we can feel even more comfortable in our own skin, and we can use our strengths rather than set those aside so we can focus on our, on building up our weaknesses.
There’s a place for both, and the research would show that we are more fulfilled, more satisfied, and better off when we use our strengths in meaningful ways in our lives. The first step of that, of course, is knowing what they are. The second step for me has been to go beyond what I learn about myself, into what I can learn about my kids and my friends and my family.
I love when Ralphie Jacobs of Simply on Purpose. She’s a parenting expert. She was on the show. I’ll link her episode in the show notes. I think it’s episode number 56. Really great episode about parenting on Purpose. And one of the things that she says often is to water the flowers, not the weeds. When you’re parenting.
This is exactly focusing on the strengths that your kids have, focusing on the good that they do in the world, rather than harping on the things that they’re doing wrong and continually trying to change the things that aren’t going right.
What happens or what could happen if we were unconditionally encouraging with our kids’ strengths? What would happen if we noticed them, we spotted them, we figured them out, we lifted them, and we taught them to do the same?
If we taught them to not worry so much about what they’re not great at and to really use to their benefit and their enjoyment, the things that they are. The VIA has a youth survey. I think that it starts around 10-12, but I’m going to have my kids do it. I haven’t yet. I’m going to have my kids sit down and take it. Take them out to lunch and sit down and do the survey and talk about using our strengths in meaningful ways and help them pinpoint maybe what are one or two ways that they could use one of their signature strengths in a meaningful way this next week.
What would the world look like if people focused on their strengths and focused on the strengths in others? If we lifted lives by what is going well and what we’re doing right and what we’re so good at, and if we let go a little bit of the idea that we need to force ourselves to do things that we’re not very good at, so that we can get better at them.
There’s nothing wrong with building up the things that we’re not great at. We will feel better and more satisfied if we focus primarily on using our strengths for.
Overusing Strengths
Now you can overuse strengths as well. For example, in the case of curiosity, optimal use is this being open and intrigued.
Overuse of curiosity would be when you get noisy or intrusive, and underuse is when you’re bored or apathetic. So, curiosity in its beautiful middle that Aristotle’s mean is when you’re open and intrigued. What about curiosity? Curiosity in its optimal use is uniqueness. That is practical and original.
Overusing creativity might take you into the eccentric or odd, or the place where you’re not able to then function properly because things are just too off the ball. Now, underusing, creativity looks like conforming or just doing what everyone else is doing. There’s that beautiful middle where you’re unique and original, and that feels beneficial.
Overuse of the strength of judgment would lead you to be cynical and rigid. If you’re in an optimal use, you’re open minded and analytical. That’s what judgment is, using your mind to consider different possibilities and analyze situations. If you’re under using your judgment, then you’re more illogical or naive.
As I wrap up today, I want you to think about you. as a rock climber on that wall. This is your life and you’re climbing through it step by step. Are you going to strain and try to pull and wrench yourself up the wall using your small muscles, or are you going to lift yourself up with your strengths? Are you going to allow the things that you’re already naturally, beautifully, uniquely good at to help elevate your whole experience? Making life a little bit easier, a little bit more fulfilling, a little bit more joy.
Conclusion
Thank you so much for tuning in today to episode 226, Lift With Your Strength. I want to invite you if it’s been a little while since you left a rating and written review to head over to iTunes and do that quick.
It just takes two minutes of your time, and I would hugely appreciate the lift that that would give to this show.
If you want to learn a little bit more about yourself, feel more connected, rediscover that spark inside and have a lot of fun while you’re doing it, join me at Grownup Summer Camp.
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You can reserve your spot with just $500 down today@livefreecreative.co slash summer camp. You are welcome to come by yourself. You will leave with friends, I promise, and if you want to come with one or two friends, you can book a whole tent and earn some great savings that. If you have any questions about grownup summer camp, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
I would love to share more about it with you, and I would love to see you there. I hope you have a beautiful week, that you learn a little bit about your strengths and that you can start lifting with them more often in your life. Have a good one. Chat with you next time. Bye-bye.
