Ikigai — Finding Your Career Sweet Spot. Four Circles of Love, Pay, World Need: How to Find Your Purpose, Passion, Mission and Getting Paid For While Solving Real World Problems (Without Burning Out)
“Most People Spend More Time Planning A Party Or A Vacation Than Planning Their Own Lives”
#SundayGrowth Personal Development Exercise of the week: (Full story below)
Close yourself in this weekend for at least one hour (1–4h) and answer for yourself the following questions:
A. KEY QUESTIONS TO ANSWER
1. What do you LOVE doing
2. What are you GOOD at
3. What can you be PAID for
4. What does the world NEED
5. What do you HATE doing
B. DETAILED QUESTIONS
Here are some more detailed sub-questions for each category that might help come up with answers:
1. What do you LOVE doing
Anything that you enjoy doing above average (7+ out of 10)
- what is it you spend your leisure time with?
- what would you do if you had all the time in the world?
- if you would be stuck in one moment and could only do one thing for the rest of your life what would be the one thing you would do?
- what did you enjoy doing, playing as a young kid and at school?
- in what section of a library do you get stuck? What books do you love reading? (Check your amazon profile/history)
- What do others (parents, friends) think you are passionate about?
- What deep dive topics / specialisations did you pick in school / university (and why)?
- What do you care about and show clear passion about?
- What would you talk about if you need to give a one hour speech?
- What would your friends and family answer to this question? (just ask, or post on social networks)?
- What are your values? What people do you admire and why?
- What where the highlights in your private and professional life? How can you have 10x more of those and make them to your constant “job”?
2. What are you GOOD at?
What you are good at is usually what’s easy for you to either do / learn quickly or easy to stay with and have the patience to stay till the end because you like it or because you’re good at.
- Go again through questions above and below to get additional inspiration for this question
- What do you help people with on a regular basis?
- For what advise or help do people contact you?
- Where (what subjects/areas) did you excel in school and university?
- You could do a personality test or strength finder (e.g. from gallup) to analyse this further. Ever done one? Open it up.
- What is hard for you to learn or comprehend, what is easy and was always easy if you think back?
- What jobs / tasks do you get at work from your colleagues / bosses or would you get outside the work environment?
3. What can you be PAID for doing
- currently or in the future (or has high income potential)
Some things have a higher pay rate and income opportunity as others (e.g. being an artist vs being a developer). And while the top performer and best in every area can and will always have outstanding earning potential be aware that the market, time and locations/countries pay differently for various skill sets
- Where do you make most of your money from currently? What’s your cashcow?
- What was your cashcow / main source of income previously? List all main jobs since you can remember.
- What side jobs have you had that made you some additional money?
- List all additional ways that you ever made money with in the past (no matter how small. 1+ EUR/Dollar/GBP)
- How do others make their money (what could you do too?) (go through your contact list on Linkedin, phone, mail, fb — and keep your eyes open / look around. Keep an eye on news and the big earners behind each company story)
- Who are the people you know making most and what skills do they have?
- What do you love doing that you can get paid for?
- What skills / jobs have already become obsolete or will become more unnecessary, automated or outsourced in the future?
- What are hot trending topics and technologies (e.g. 3D printing, voice, AI, self driving etc) that are discussed in the media that become more than trends and turn into future opportunities?
4. What does the world NEED?
- What are hot trending topics and technologies (e.g. 3D printing, voice, AI, self driving etc) that are discussed in the media that become more than trends and turn into future opportunities?
- Google jobs with / without future
- if you go to job boards, what are the jobs you always see in high demand and open for long or paid highly?
- where will the world be in 5, 10 or 25 years? What skills will be important then?
- What challenges do we face as a society, the older generation and the newest generation/youngest kids now or in 10–25 years?
What do you HATE doing?
I added this to the original graphic and concept as I believe it is more important to reduce the things that create stress and pain than focusing on the last 20% optimizing for “happiness”. If there’s no major problems or situations that take your energy and let you feel stressed or anxious, the rest becomes easy.
- create a list of situations that stress you out and you’d like to eliminate completely from your life (these are usually less than you think and focusing on reducing these can have a massive impact on your overall happiness level)
- what is it you don’t like doing at work and privately?
- what do you procrastinate on usually?
- what stresses or triggers you?
- what tasks don’t you like doing and would rate below average (0 to 6 out of 10 on a scale 1- 10 (happiest)?
- What would others say you hate doing?
- If somebody would give you a personal assistant or house mate what would be the first things you would outsource, delegate and give away?
- what would you never spend money on and don’t usually spend money on?
- what made you stressed out and anxious in your career and jobs so far?
- Do the questions above (1, 2, 3 but with the opposite in mind)
You can do this exercise alone, with your partner, a trusted soulmate or group of friends.
Here is a video about the Ikigai concept
C. My STORY BEHIND THIS
“Most people spend more time planning their holiday than planning their own life”. I found this quote very inspiring and eye opening. As an action item and lessons learned I added regular time every day, week and month to reflect back.
Reflecting back and taking notes of what you think will happen with every decision you take, as well as identifying lessons learned and principles is a concept I’ve fallen in love with since my early teenager years. Over the last 20 years I collected an extensive list of diary entries with such lessons learned in various areas I can go back to and recognise patterns.
At university it got strengthens after I learnt about Peter Drucker and other stories of monks who wrote down everything they believe to happen after a decision and the assumptions behind so after years they can go back and reflect on the original assumption and the new reality. Ray Dalio, one of the most successful hedge fund fond managers bases his whole book “Principles” (free vide on his website) on all such lessons learned, patterns and principles he collected in a similar way over his life time. (It’s an excellent book if you’re into learning from successful people)
Since this, my calendar has a weekly placeholder called “Growth Church” on each Sunday. I started putting this in some weeks ago after I was joining friends at a Sunday mass at church and realised that all religions have dedicated time set aside for their members — for example weekly Sunday mass, holidays, daily prayer etc.
All big movement understood of the importance of repetition and visualisation in order to stay focused, remember and follow a specific goal, mantra, belief.
Nowadays nobody goes to church anymore.
We go to Instagram, Facebook and T/winder instead.
It’s all about “me” — not anymore about “we”.
“Growing & Giving” is what I’d like to combine as I find it reflects two important aspects for self fulfillment. GROW to the best possible person you can be. In order to be able to GIVE as much to as many as you can. An unhealthy tree doesn’t give fruits. A prosperous person can and should give more than one that is still in the beginning of their journey and growing.
Hence, as I’m working on these things regularly, I will share Every Sunday one personal development exercise here. Maybe somebody finds it useful.
//Keep growing & Giving
- This article has also been published on Linkedin and my Twitter feed. Thanks for liking. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ikigai-finding-your-career-sweet-spot-four-circles-love-bj%C3%B6rn-%C3%BChss/
- Leave a comment below or PM me if you want to be added to a weekly email with similar exercises and thoughts.
- I plan to have a regular come together / Personal Development MASTERMIND and Accountability & Support Group of a small selected dedicated group of people in Barcelona (and online) who want to work on their goals. Ping me if interested.
Thanks for your support. Björn
