Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Purposeful Life
Over the past year, I've noticed mentions of Ikigai popping up on social media from time to time. Like many of us, I find anything related to Japan intriguing—they're a fascinating society with many innovative contributions to the world.
Ikigai certainly sounds cool, and the diagrams shared online look both appealing and potentially useful.
Unfortunately, life got in the way, and I hadn't been able to explore Ikigai in depth until recently.
Just the other day, while at the library with my daughter, I spotted a book on Ikigai. It seemed reasonably short, so I borrowed it and started reading.
What a journey it turned out to be. The book is very well-written, easy to read and understand.
To be honest, it doesn't contain much new information. Ikigai is essentially the Japanese way of finding life's purpose. As someone deeply interested in these concepts and who often contemplates life's purpose, I found the book reinforced many ideas I already knew, yet it also offered fresh perspectives.
What is IKIGAI?
“Ikigai is a Japanese concept that refers to one’s reason for being or life’s purpose. The term combines two Japanese words: “iki” (生き), meaning “life,” and “gai” (甲斐), meaning “worth” or “value.” Ikigai is about finding joy, fulfillment, and balance in the daily activities that you do, serving as the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.”
So yeah, a life purpose.
Origins of Ikigai
The concept of Ikigai does not have a direct historical origin in ancient Japanese texts; instead, it has evolved from a cultural understanding of living a life that balances social, spiritual, and practical needs. The idea is closely related to the Japanese traditional concept of finding one’s "role" in the community, which emphasizes living in harmony with others and fulfilling one's societal duties.
Ikigai in Traditional Japanese Culture
In traditional Japanese society, Ikigai was closely linked to one’s role within the family and community. The collective well-being of the group often took precedence over individual desires, and finding one's Ikigai was associated with fulfilling roles that benefited everyone, such as craftsmanship, farming, or family care.
Modern Interpretation and Practice
In contemporary Japan, Ikigai still plays a significant role but has adapted to include more personal and individualistic pursuits. Today, it encompasses career success, personal achievements, and hobbies. Many Japanese find their Ikigai in their work or in practices that require mastery and dedication, such as art, martial arts, or tea ceremony — activities that offer a sense of accomplishment and community contribution.
Why is it good to find your Ikigai?
Basically, our Ikigai or life's purpose is the reason why we get up in the morning.
It's pretty common sense. If I am not happy with my life, then life isn't great, and I am unhappy. My job is just a job, one I probably hate. I may have anxiety because I don't see a bright future, and so on.
On the other hand, if I have a clear Ikigai, my life has a purpose. I am happy. My job is probably aligned with my Ikigai, so it doesn't really feel like a job because I love doing it. I know where I am heading in my life. When I encounter difficult times, I push through because I have a clear sense of direction.
So finding one’s Ikigai brings a lot of good things:
A clear direction - You know where you are going and why.
Increased motivation and persistence - Having a clear sense of purpose provides intrinsic motivation. Everyone with a clearly defined Ikigai shares one thing in common: they pursue their passion no matter what. They never give up, even when the cards seem stacked against them or they face one hurdle after another.
Enhanced Well-being and Life Satisfaction - If you know where you are heading and what you are doing with your life, it goes without saying that you are highly likely living a happy life. Your life, your job, your relationships—all of it has meaning.
Health Benefits - Your body and mind work together. Having a clear purpose in life reduces both stress and anxiety and helps to reduce their physical manifestations on your body.
In short, having a clearly defined Ikigai brings satisfaction, happiness, and meaning to our lives and helps us live longer.
Apparently, people from Okinawa not only live much longer than the rest of the world’s population, but they also suffer from fewer chronic illnesses such as cancer and heart disease; inflammatory disorders are also less common.
What is your reason of being?
According to the Japanese, everyone has an Ikigai. Some people have found their Ikigai, while others are still searching, though they carry it within them.
This aligns with my understanding of finding one's life's purpose.
I'll tell it to you as it is: It's not easy to find your life purpose. The lucky ones know from a young age. Most of us are still looking. The luckier ones might have an idea what their life purpose is; many of us might never fully find it.
Our Ikigai is hidden inside each of us, and finding it requires a patient search.
How to find your Ikigai?
The good news is that it is possible to find it, or at least to come very close to finding it.
Finding your Ikigai involves exploring four interrelated components, which, when intersected, may lead to a fulfilling and balanced life. These components are:
What You Love (Your Passion):
This prompts you to reflect on what you genuinely enjoy doing in your life. It's about identifying activities that bring joy and deeply engage you. Whether it's painting, teaching, writing, or anything else, this element of Ikigai is rooted in genuine interest and emotional fulfillment. It’s your intrinsic motivation.
What You Are Good At (Your Vocation):
This aspect of Ikigai focuses on skills and talents. It involves a self-assessment of what you excel in. Finding your strengths helps you understand how you can contribute to something meaningfully. What you are good at likely aligns with what you love.
What the World Needs (Your Mission):
This component looks outward. It’s about finding a need in the world that resonates with you, which you believe is important and are passionate about addressing.
What You Can Be Paid For (Your Profession):
This practical aspect of Ikigai considers the economic viability of your passions and skills. It’s nice to be passionate about something, but for you to be able to work on it long-term, it needs to be economically sustainable.
You probably have some idea already, and there are exercises you can use to narrow it down.
What You Love and What You Are Good At
In my opinion, this is the easiest part. It’s quite fun to think about and is very self-exploratory.
What you are trying to do is answer questions like: What makes you enjoy doing something so much that you forget about any worries you might have while doing it? When are you happiest?
Exploring topics such as core values, finding your "why," intrinsic motivation, and possibly creating a life map—all these subjects and the exercises associated with them have one main goal: to discover what you enjoy most in life.
List Your Interests: Start by listing activities that you enjoy or find absorbing, even those you might consider just hobbies or pastimes.
The Five Lives Exercise: Imagine you could live five separate lives. What would you do in each? This can help reveal hidden passions.
Journaling: Regularly journal about times when you felt most alive and fulfilled. Look for patterns that might indicate your passions.
Feedback Collection: Ask friends and family about what they see as your strengths. Sometimes, outsiders can see our talents more clearly than we can.
Favorite Characters: Think of your favorite characters from books, movies, or plays. Reflect on the qualities that you admire most in each of them and write them down. This can help you identify the values that are important to you and that you try to live by.
Go Back in Time/Life Map: Identify the times when you were happiest. What were you doing? Identify the times when you were most fulfilled and satisfied. What need or desire was fulfilled? How and why did the experience give your life meaning? What other factors contributed to your feelings of fulfillment?
Skill Inventory: Create a comprehensive list of your skills, including both soft skills (like communication) and hard skills (like programming).
What the world needs?
This aspect is more challenging and often my biggest struggle: How do you determine what the world needs?
In my experience, there are two options here:
Research Trends: Identify current trends, find out what people—or you—struggle with (whether in your work or day-to-day life), and identify something you can improve with your skills.
Don’t Care: Focus on your passion and your vocation, and perhaps (probably) over time (and it can take a very long time), you will find something that the world needs.
Both approaches can work. There are countless stories of people who found success (and their Ikigai) by following one of these methods.
If you do what you love, you tend to stick with it for a long time. The longer you stick with it, the more of an expert you become in that field. The “10,000-Hour Rule” illustrates this well.
Once you are an expert in your field, opportunities usually present themselves.
What You Can Be Paid For
This is similar to 'Your Mission' and has the same solution.
Treat it like a business: Test your ideas. Before fully committing, test out your concepts on a small scale to see if they can be monetized effectively. Perform a proper Cost-Benefit Analysis. Weigh the potential income against the costs (time, money, energy) to assess the feasibility of your ideas.
Don’t care: Focus on your passion and your vocation and maybe (probably) over time (and it can take a very long time) you will find something that people will be willing to pay for.
There are many stories of 'overnight' successful people who followed their passions for years and, even when it looked like a lost cause, they eventually found a way to monetize their passion.
Let's look at J.K. Rowling's story. Rowling pursued her passion for writing, which she had held since childhood. The idea for Harry Potter came to her during a delayed train journey from Manchester to London in 1990, and it took her seven years to get the book published.
The 'don’t care' approach works. So which one is right for you? That depends on your personality.
I've always struggled with researching trends or testing my ideas. At some point, I decided to stop trying and focus on the “don’t care” path. It's possible I will never experience Rowling’s success. But who knows? At least my passion and vocation will be fulfilled.
Can I live without Ikigai?
You can, but do you really want to? I have to admit that this title is a bit clickbait-y, but I don’t like to call it 'conclusion.'
Ikigai, or life purpose, is something everyone has inside of us. Even if you think you don’t care, you do. Everyone wants to live a happy life, ideally doing what they love, and live a long life.
It’s without doubt (and backed by many studies) that to achieve a long and happy life, we need to keep both our mental and physical bodies in good shape.
And, to be honest, our mental state is even more important because if you have your mental health in order, you know your Ikigai, and a healthy lifestyle usually follows.
