Play, ikigai, soul-searching and a CV.
This month, I celebrate my fifth and final anniversary at Carat — I’ve decided to move on, and have started a six month project to, not only find a new opportunity but also figure out what that might be.
Over the past year, I’ve been working a great deal on our internal organisational culture ‘Make Brave Happen’ — one of the projects under that is Personal Bravery Planning — a programme for every individual in the agency which helps to develop a personal development plan looking ahead over the next three years. It’s rooted in the whole individual, not just as an employee, and looks to help everyone define a sense of future purpose, and then the steps to fulfilling that.
It’s an incredibly hard thing to do, to simply figure out your purpose in life or career, so we help everyone explore their own motivations, passions, interests, skills, comfort and bravery zones through game play — I’ve designed over 36 games to build up a picture of 16 areas of a development plan (I’ll write this up later in the year).
In the design of the programme, I’ve been doing a great deal of reading around the concepts of purpose, wonderful books like The Crossroads of Should and Must; Quiet; playing with School of You’s Career Crisis game cards; and a whole host of blog postson Medium on the topic.
The concept of ikigai comes up frequently.
Ikigai or 生き甲斐, is a Japanese concept that means “a reason for being.” It is similar to the French phrase Raison d’être. Everyone, according to Japanese culture, has an ikigai. Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self. (src: Wikipedia)
It roughly consists of four overlapping areas:
- Things you LOVE
- Things you’re GOOD AT
- Things you can get PAID TO DO
- Things the WORLD NEEDS
Being in a role which has combinations of any of these suggest you may have a vocation (things you can get paid to do which the world needs), a mission (things which you love and the world needs), a profession or passion (etc), and perfect blend of all four creates ‘ikigai’.
When I tell people that I’m leaving Carat, and will be starting a new role in Jan 2018, they unsurprisingly ask what I’m going to do — and the honest answer, today, is I don’t know.
I’ve been asked to write a CV, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, partially because of my imposter syndrome, and also because of my portfolio career — so I’ve been using some of the games I designed upon myself, to see what themes come out strongly:
- what does my career path to date say about me? (I have a multifaceted career, but all roles have pointed towards identifying and creating positive new behaviours and services for brands);
- what motivates me? (smart and passionate people; having impact beyond just my own projects; every day learning; creative and dynamic environments);
- and what I’m good at? (visionary pragmatism, getting excited, exploring the possibilities, bringing together brilliant teams, instinctively seeing the right path) — and so on, in order to fill out a sort of ikigai template for myself.
I’m going to work on my “LOVE” and “GOOD AT” buckets, and spend the rest of the year having copious amounts of coffee and conversation with people who inspire me, who are doing amazing work, who are trying to solve new and exciting problems, who I want to learn from — and ask a pretty simple question: “what problems are you facing, and how are you going about solving them?”
I’m very much treating it just as I would a client project — sitting in the seat of the naive and interested impartial observer, and listening, listening, listening, understanding the most significant themes — and then I’ll play back what I’ve discovered to everyone I meet, but also for my own ikigai mapping.
By the end of the year — I’m hoping I’ll have achieved a handful of things:
- A sense of what I’m good at, and love doing — through self-reflection.
- A sense of what challenges organisations are facing — through conversation.
- A new job with a team who I can learn even more from — through designed serendipity.
I’ll be at Carat until the end of 2017, and I’m still dedicated fully to the projects which I’ve invested so heavily in over the past few years, whether it be our agency wide Strategic Ambition Planning framework, our organisational culture of Make Brave Happen, or simply working with the amazing people who have made the last five years such a wonderful time and learning experience.
Do let me know if you fancy a coffee too.
(and if you love words which don’t translate simply, there’s a lovely list of 15 Japanese ones here including my favourite at the moment Tsundoku)
This article has been published as part of an ongoing series of posts related to me looking for my next role. I’m working out a six-month notice period as Head of Strategy and Innovation, and wondering what I could/should/might do next. I’d love to hear from you if you’ve been on, or are considering or would never go on a similar journey.
