Learning Your Strengths Can Help Your Personal Life
While StrengthsFinder is a natural fit for the workplace and professional relationships, it is also worth exploring in your personal relationships as well. Understanding my husband’s strengths and mine collectively has been a game changer in our marriage.
What we discovered is that our strengths in many ways are very different. This has resulted in some difficult conversations in our early years together. We frustrated each other, believing that the way each of us saw moving forward on a topic was the “right” way. What became clear to both of us as we explored our strengths and each other’s strengths is that there is no “right” way, but that if we work together and speak in a language of strengths, we can move forward in a much more productive way collectively. Here is an overview to help highlight how this works.
I am generally about identifying where we want to get and moving forward strategically and energetically, assuring excellence along the way. He is more about understanding the basic direction and then taking time to think and learn about it and identify areas of risk that need to be mitigated before we start.
I am generally quick to take the “command” post, plot the direction and then lead others to our goal line. He is about thinking and learning more about our goal and then joining forces with others, together moving forward. He is comfortable with the give and take of how we do something; the importance being we are in “harmony”.
In the worst scenario sometimes, my strengths hinder. I bark orders and he retreats to avoid conflict. This is something we have had to work on as a couple, because neither of us is playing to our strengths in a positive way.
In the best scenario our strengths help us. He is clear as to why we (I) need to slow down and take some time, assure our ducks are in a row and we have identified the amount of risk we are able to tolerate.In the best scenario I am clear as to why activating my energy and listening to and trusting my strategy will be what is best in this case for us (him).
In general, understanding my strengths and talents allows me to “aim” the right strengths at the right time. It also helps me notice when what I am doing is not working. I then press my internal pause button and come about it in a different way, maybe using different strengths. The result is I remain engaged and energized.
One key to our success lies in a strength we share. We both have Relator very high in our strengths. Relators value the core group of people who are their inner circle. This is the group that they go deep with, that they count on, that they ultimately are always there for. That is one strength that my husband and I share. So even when we need to navigate a rocking boat there is never a question that we together will make it to the shoreline. Sometimes we will take the longer route because I trust taking the time to avoid the potential alligators makes sense. There are other times when he actually is excited to trust my vision and hold on because we are going to paddle really fast.
This is our strengths story. Are you curious about your family? I encourage you to think about how discovering your strengths might smooth out some familial relationships, or even how discovering your own might help you navigate your own personal relationships.