Did I Find My Ikigai?

My Remote Year program was named Ikigai, which roughly translates to your reason for being. With a name like this, my group talked about finding their “ikigai” throughout the year. In looking back at my year, I am trying to figure out if I did find my ikigai.

This image is extremely important to me and in many ways represents my year. I wear it now on my wrist on a leather band that was given to me by my program leads and on my ear, in the form of 4 piercings strategically places on my helix and outer cartilage, many of my fellow Ikigais have this image inked on them. For me it is a reminder of the amazing people I travelled with over the year and the places we went. But it is also a reminder to find ways to make my life as fulfilling as I possibly can. But I think it goes deeper than that. My reason for being has transformed over the year with the changes in my life and thinking about whether or not I have found that purpose is ultimately done based on looking at the ikigai ven diagram and keeping that diagram balanced. So let’s take a look at how this has evolved for me over the year.
That which you can be paid for:
I am putting this one first because as I have mentioned in other posts. I am a recovering workaholic. This circle was overpowering for me prior to starting to travel and will always remain an important part of my overall picture.
I am a weird person who knew I wanted to go into advertising when I was applying for college. I have always been good at math and solving puzzles and in high school I got really into graphic design. I was also the ultimate consumer when I was younger. My mom tells a story of me walking into a bait shop at the age of 5 or 6 and finding something I had to buy and then proceeding to convince her that I really did need that thing. I could find something to buy anywhere I went. As I have grown up, I know I do not always need to find something to buy and have gotten to the point, largely through this year, where I value experiences over possessions and am currently working on cleaning out a lot of the clutter of possessions in my life but it shows that I have had a passion for consumerism from an early age. When I was looking at colleges and majors, I discovered advertising as a way to combine the strategic/mathematical part of my brain with the creative side and was immediately in love. In college, I found media planning almost by chance and ultimately found that I could use my skills the best by helping companies find their target markets through placing their ads in the right place. Getting the right message out there is important but it is nothing if you cannot find those people who will respond to it and that is where I feel I thrive. While the actual job has changed over this year, I know the general idea of what I want to do and where I can help most.
Of my circles, this is the one that I had figured out and while it is changing slightly with time, I am confident that I should be doing the job that I am doing right now but I now know that I need the other circles to keep me balanced.
That which the world needs:
Going counter-clockwise here, social impact and giving back has always been something that I have tried to do. I have volunteered throughout my life and donated (when I can) to causes I love.
Throughout Remote Year, I tried to be as active as possible in the opportunities to give back. Many times this was through physical labor, be it the day when just 3 of us made it out to help garden in Xochimilco, near Mexico City, clearing up the marshes by Valencia or working with a monkey conservation project near Cordoba by helping them with their website and social media, just to name a few. I think that I can be the most help when I help with the skills I am best at.
Where I am at with my career right now is that I have started NoMadAve, an advertising company geared towards small business & start-ups, and I want to specifically work with companies in the travel and non-profit sectors, which is where I can give back from a work perspective, making the vocation part of the ven diagram stand out on that side for now. And leads perfectly into the next section.
That which you love:
This one is easy for me. I love pushing myself beyond my limits specifically while traveling and Remote Year in many respects allowed me to pursue that and showed me where I thrive most in that section. Travel is a large part of my passion.
I believe here is where I still have the most to grow and learn. I look for the things that make me the most happy everyday and it is not always the same. One part that I know I need to work on is that I do really enjoy working out but it has been taken out of my daily activities (written about here) and getting that and other activities like that that are the daily small releases.
That which you are good at:
As mentioned above, I feel in terms of work I have found what I am good at. I want to help people bring their passions to life and believe I am getting closer to that goal. This circle is sort of the hardest, especially because I may be best at being self-critical.
Overall, I do believe that I am close to finding that one thing that is my Ikigai, but I am also not sure that it is just one thing and more can encompass your life completely. While I am not positive that I have found my ikigai yet, I know I found my Ikigais, the people I traveled with, and for that I am forever grateful and they definitely are apart of my overall ikigai.