Lived honestly, less content and not at full strength (5)

'lived honestly' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech. However, adjectives and past participle verbs can sometimes mean the same thing.

'less content and not at full strength' is the wordplay.
'less' becomes 'lower' (synonyms).
'content' means to look at the middle letters.
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'not at full strength' becomes 'ashy' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The centre of 'lower' is 'w'.
'w'+'ashy'='WASHY'

Can you help me to learn more?