My Strength is “Input,” But Enough Already

Many years ago, my work group and I took the Gallup StrengthFinders survey. The theory behind this survey was that employees who get to do what they do best at work every day are more engaged and more productive in their jobs. The survey’s purpose was to identify what people do best.

My top strength was “Input.” The Gallup definition of this strength begins:

“You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs.”

I was shocked. I don’t collect anything (or very few things). But then, I reflected . . . . Information. Yes, I do like to collect information.

My favorite part of any new lawsuit or other legal matter was the first several days of working on it, the time during which I had to ferret out the facts, research the law, and figure out how to approach the problem. Once I’d come to a conclusion about the “right” answer and how to get there, the actual doing of it was often boring. And contentious. I’d had my fun, and then I had to execute.

As I read further on what “Input” was in the Gallup StrengthFinders system, a lot of the rest of the definition seemed to resonate:

“Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity.

If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful?

With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.”

Most of this definition described me.

And once I turned to writing, I gave myself permission to research—a writer’s form of Input. I read everything I could on how to write novels. I went to classes, both online and at conferences. I kept a notebook to organize what I learned.

I also researched the historical era I wrote about and set up an online database to organize that research by place and by topic. When I turned to writing my historical fiction, this database proved invaluable.

Recently, I came across Becca Syme’s site, The Better-Faster Academy. She uses the Gallup StrengthFinders to coach writers, and she has videos discussing many of the Gallup Strengths as they apply to writers. One of her videos discusses writers’ use of the Input strength, and this video confirmed the importance of following my desire to research. She also talked about the importance of “filling the well” for writers with the Input strength.

Of course, these strengths apply to non-professional areas of our lives also.

Once the coronavirus pandemic hit, I started reading everything I could find on it. And watching the news—local, national network, and PBS—incessantly. Sometimes three hours in an evening. Filling my Input well.

Until it became too much. Until I feared what might happen if either my husband or I got the virus, and I spent wakeful nights planning our quarantine procedures “just in case.” Until I worried myself sick that my husband would be hospitalized without the regular medication he needs. Until I dreamed of getting COVID-19 myself and landing in an overworked hospital with no one to care for me.

Enough was enough. The news was no longer keeping my mind fresh. It was causing me distress.

I had to pull back. I had to fill my well in other ways. By finishing the first draft of my new novel. By taking walks. Even, by God, by doing the housework that slowly accumulated after I stopped the housecleaning service for the duration of the stay-at-home order.

I know what I need to know about the pandemic. I know to stay inside and to social distance when I go outside. I know to stay as healthy as I can, physically and mentally. And my mental health required that I no longer obsess about the news. I still watch the news, but now I turn it off when I sense my anxiety increasing.

What have you done to keep yourself healthy during the pandemic?