On finding your Ikigai
TLDR: some exercises you can try to find your Ikigai — purpose personally and professionally
What is Ikigai? For me, Ikigai means finding my purpose and balance between doing what I love to do and what can fulfill me spiritually and financially in my professional pursuits.
I hope that you can appreciate this Ikigai model as a potential north star for your own reflection and growth:
I’ve been very fortunate over the years to have had various advisory and leadership roles for a broad range of experiences in improving human health and wellness in industry, academia, start-ups, and non-profit orgs. Each of these companies/orgs and teams had different compositions of the Ikigai diagram.
I’ve run workshops, camps, and made lots of curriculum on growth mindset and Ikigai. I’ve talked to and coached countless people on what their purpose is and how their career and personal life intersect. From my previous and from others’ experiences, very few people can easily say they have found their Ikigai. For example, it may be harder to find the “what you love” part of Ikigai in Industry roles, but the pay is significantly better. I’ve found that in most of the non-profit projects, there’s more of what I love and less of what I can be paid for until getting to director/C-suite roles (e.g., I’ve taken projects that were 40–100% less than industry offers I’ve received).
Work isn’t everything!! Other people and myself have generally supplemented their lives with non-work related projects to get closer to their Ikigai.
“So uhhhh what can I do to find my Ikigai then?”
Know that you CAN find a balance that resonates with you, it might take more time than you anticipated. All of the preparation, learnings, relationships you’ve built — they are all a part of your foundation.
Here’s an example of using house building as a metaphor for career building:
- You’ve got to build a great foundation for a lasting structure — your skills, experiences, mentors/network
- Then you can build walls and build up — boundaries for balance and protection of what you care about, what you can protect, walls to hang your achievements or other tokens of inspiration
- Create + maintain open space so you can have flow; plants, people, who breathe life into your life — cut out the ones that are taking all the nutrients/are malicious (Marie Kondo it out!!)
- ETC, you get it, choose your own metaphor to anchor you?
Some things you can try:
- Ask yourself “What do I want?!” Do this intentionally- right when you wake up, when you go to bed so you can dream about it, journal, talk to friends/mentors. If you are questioning if something brings you joy — it doesn’t. Anything that isn’t a F yes, is a no. So maybe you can’t cut it out right away, but you can make a plan.
- Review your values: How do different career paths intersect with your core values? Maybe your professional values are slightly different or completely different from your core values. If they are completely different, how will you find balance?
- Ask yourself — “Why am I here on this Earth?”What would I do if I had 1 day, 1 yr, 2yr, 10yr, 25yr of life left to live ? Who/When/Where/When/Why/How would you choose to focus your energy on XYZ?
- Integrate accountability: Set daily/weekly/monthly/yearly milestones, Get a coach. Get your friends/partner/a team to hold you accountable. Pay yourself or have someone pay you when you do XYZ, pay 2x to something/someone else if you don’t do XYZ.
Example exercise I did for myself on my values:
Happy mindful living and may you find your Ikigai!
Love, Monique
