Photo by wolfgangphoto

The Purpose of Life Is to Discover Your Gift. The Meaning of Life Is to Give It Away.

IKIGAI (pronounced ee-ki-guy), is a Japanese concept meaning ‘the reason for being’ – the very purpose for which an individual exists. Ikigai signifies the source of value in one’s life or the things that make one’s life worthwhile. According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai and discovering it and living a life aligned to one’s ikigai adds contentment and meaning to one’s life.

Besides, research suggests that staying connected with your ikigai has a noteworthy influence on your health, vitality and longevity. Research by Dan Buettner of National Geographic of over 73,000 Okinawans, who have the highest percentage of centenarians in the world, highlights ikigai as a key to their longevity (alongside active life, healthy eating habits and social connections). A clear sense of purpose is also known to improve cardio-vascular health and emotional resilience.

The idea of ikigai has great relevance to how we choose our life’s work – not merely our professional pursuits, but the very direction of our life. Among all the roles we play in life, which of those is central to who we are and what we want our life to be about. Is nurturing your children to their potential your ikigai or is it serving your community; is creating innovative solutions for your clients or providing a financially and emotionally stable family environment?

Powerful relevance to professional life

The concept of ikigai can further be adapted to significantly guide our choices in our professional life. It is equally helpful to a youngster starting out in her professional life and to a person who in his middle years is keen to create a meaningful second innings. While the idea of following our passion inspires us, but then we struggle to identify enough role models who have made a success of doing so and we quickly resort to pursuing what would make us financially successful. Over time, this might lead us to success but not necessarily to happiness and fulfilment.

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.” ~ Abraham Maslow

As you would notice in the pictorial representation below, this approach suggests considering four elements to determine your professional ikigai.

1. What you love doing

What gets you excited, what’s a source of happiness and fulfilment for you? What would you love to engage in if you had no constraints – financial or social? Reflect on your life thus far and assess what have been your most enjoyable moments and what made them so. Was it solving problems, organising things, performing, creating art or music, sports, physics, psychology, connecting with people, teaching, learning new things and so forth.

2. What you are good at

Next, reflect on your strengths. What are your particularly good at? Also ask other people who know you well – what do they say you are good at? Again, is it marketing, designing, analytical thinking, organising, forging relationships, starting new projects, execution, strategising, big picture ideas, communication and so on.

3. What the world needs

Reflect on the key issues you strongly believe need addressing in the world and what you would like to do about them. These don’t have to be biggest global issues of our time, but the issues that personally touch your heart everyday. Is it bringing out the best in others, helping families to be financially independent, creating art to help people connect with their range of emotions, developing innovative solutions for cleaner energy, designing tools to help the elderly and so on.

4. What you can be paid for

Finally, determine the marketability of your skills. In this list, include fields you have the skills to be involved in that potentially offer a healthy financial reward. More importantly, explore potential ways to bring your deeper interests and passion to this world in a financially viable manner. This is important because many talented people don’t pay enough attention to this part – particularly, individuals in creative fields are often uncomfortable with the idea of marketing their skills.

Would creating a mass digital platform incorporating an engaging way to teach (your passion, strength, and what young children need) offer a viable path? Would charging consulting fee to help NGOs scale their leadership capacity make it workable for you? Is learning to promote your music or art as important as creating it?

Modern adaptation of Ikigai

As you bring the pieces of these four lists together and explore the overlapping ideas, you begin to discover your professional ikigai – your sweet spot, where everything is in balance. Identifying it and pursuing it creates a potent force that would not only deeply inspire you, but also makes the world a better place.

Applying this approach

While working with clients in this space, I have found approaching this exercise in a purist way and starting with the first three elements most powerful. Once you have clarity on what is it that you love doing, are good at, and how it meaningfully serves society, it is generally possible to create a viable income stream from it. At times this may require acquiring or building certain new skills. Some people start from how they want to serve society, others from what they love doing most – but eventually, if you are passionate about your vocation and are skilful at it, it would evolve into your profession. That’s how I have personally seen my pursuit of my calling, related to supporting others in their life and leadership journeys, develop into a successful business practice.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you are good at what you do and it pays well, and although you don’t greatly love what you do or find deep meaning in it you are not keen to rethink your entire existence, you may want to consider this. Reflect on what is it about your work that you love doing and how your work can serve society (the other two elements of the ikigai approach). Then explore how you can expand those aspects of your professional life – maybe it’s developing your team members to be the best they can be or being more creative in solving business issues or being single-minded in your research for new ideas for a better society. Connecting with these two elements and consciously expanding on them in your every day work can support you in creating a new relationship with your professional pursuits and move you closer to experiencing your ikigai.