Three words. Eight letters.

“I said yes.’’

Those words have made all the difference for former Mets slugger Darryl Strawberry.

“I started living a different way. It’s fun to make a difference,’’ Strawberry told The Post recently. “I remember a time when we were all playing together with the ’86 team and we were making a difference as players. We won a championship. It wasn’t one person that won it for us, it was all of us. We all made a difference.

“Life moves on, and you want to be able to make a stamp on life, making a difference in somebody else’s life. That’s what I wake up for each day.’’

Those three words, “I said yes,” were the reason Strawberry, an ordained minister, was in Sioux Falls, S.D., recently visiting the McCrossan Boys Ranch. Those three words are the reason he runs the Darryl Strawberry Recovery Center in St. Cloud, Fla. A second center just opened in DeLand, Fla.

“I said yes to God,’’ said Strawberry, 54, who had his own well-documented problems with substance abuse. “That has made all the difference.’’

Strawberry’s Mets won the World Series in 1986, and he never could have imagined the path his life has taken.

Same for the Mets.

The Mets haven’t won a World Series since, but now they have another chance after falling to the Royals last year in five games — on the 30th anniversary of the Royals’ last championship.

Baseball goes in cycles, and Strawberry offers these words of caution to the current generation of Mets stars who have taken over New York City in a way that hasn’t been seen since Strawberry’s Mets ran the city.

Thirty long years, and not another Mets championship.

“That’s very disappointing,’’ Strawberry said. “They should have been able to be in the winner’s circle a few years. You just hope that last year wasn’t just a fluke. You have to hope that they see the challenge here. We have to play together. We can’t play on what happened last year. We’ve got to play on what we do this year.

“They’re young, they think just like we did, it’s going to happen. It’s not going to just happen. You have to make it happen.’’

Straw knows. His sweet 6-foot-6 lefty swing was a work of baseball art. But his talented Mets could not win another title.

Strawberry said he loves the foundation of these Mets.

“Their pitching staff is like how we built our team,’’ he said. “We had some great players, but we had a great pitching staff. We had a bullpen, too. It was amazing for me to play with such great pitching. Those pitchers were very smart. You had Sid [Fernandez] coming one way, Doc [Dwight Gooden] another way. You had [Ron] Darling and Rick Aguilera coming another way, and you had [Bobby] Ojeda coming yet another way.’’

These 2016 Mets have pitching variety with a staff that features Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Bartolo Colon.

What does this team have to do so it gets back to the World Series?

“These Mets have to be consistent,’’ Strawberry said. “It’s a different time. I don’t think they are like we were. If we didn’t party so much and hang out so much, I think we would have been better each year. We thought we were rock stars. It will catch up to you if you are not disciplined enough.’’

Life caught up to Strawberry, who once said his life was like falling down a “long, long flight of stairs.” Now he spends time helping kids whenever he can, and that’s why he was at McCrossan Boys Ranch.

“I was telling these kids how I was troubled at the age of 14-15,’’ Strawberry said. “Even though I went on to play baseball, my pain led me to my greatness, and my greatness led me to my destructive behavior. I’m just trying to help them with their pain so they can move on and move forward. If you don’t deal with it now, it will play out later in your life.

“I went through that whole process myself. I just became famous, but the issues and brokenness were still there.’’

Strawberry said he sees more pain now than ever.

“The kids who come into my treatment center are addicted to heroin, addicted to opiates, and they are complete slaves to the drugs who have taken over their lives,’’ he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m on the front lines. Me and Ron Dock [former intervention coordinator for the Yankees] and my wife Tracy, we are at the facility to help people get well. We’re just trying to let these kids know that their life matters. They are empty inside. They need direction.’’

Strawberry will be at Citi Field Memorial Day weekend as the Mets celebrate the 1986 championship team with what promises to be an emotional ceremony May 28.

“It’s always great to see the guys. We were in the trenches, no matter what,’’ Strawberry said.

Though he couldn’t envision the road he would travel, one special teammate did, Gary Carter.

“Gary always had a sense that I would become a man of faith and help others,’’ Strawberry said of Carter, who died in 2012 at age 57 after a battle with cancer. “He always believed in me. He had a vision, I couldn’t see it. He told me, ‘You have a good heart and God is going to use you.’ My heart is for people who are broken, who are struggling.’’

Darryl Strawberry simply said yes.