What Is Ikigai and How to Find It
Recently I came across different articles and podcasts about ikigai.
I read that ikigai should be something at the intersection of four questions:
What do we love?
What are we good at?
What does the world need?
What can you be paid for?
But I think this interpretation is misleading.
Interpreting ikigai as the point where Passion, Vocation, Mission and Profession meet creates the illusion that ikigai is a goal to be achieved.
In many ways, ikigai seems to be the opposite of this.
The world originates from Japan, specifically from Okinawa, the birthplace of Karate and home to one of the highest number of centurions in the world.
Looking for another interpretation of ikigai, I found Ken Mogi’s 5 Pillars of ikigai, which he outlines in his book, The Little Book of Ikigai: The Essential Japanese Way to Finding Purpose in Life.
Ikigai is about discovery, the definition and appreciation of those pleasures life offers us and that have a particular meaning for us.
I used these two simple questions as a starting point to discover my ikigai and to use it as a tool for a happier and more fulfilled life:
- Which things have a real emotional value for me?
- What are the little things that give me pleasure?
This way, ikigai brings out the Peter Pan who still lives in a corner of ourselves, greedy for curiosity and characterized by an incredible open-mindedness.
Back to Ken Mogi’s book, here are the 5 Pillars he identified:
- Pillar 1: Starting small
- Pillar 2: Releasing yourself
- Pillar 3: Harmony and sustainability
- Pillar 4: The joy of little things
- Pillar 5: Being in the here and now
To help you understand what these Pillars mean, I’ll quote some pages of Ken’s book.
Starting Small
“When you are young, you cannot start things in a big way. Whatever you do, it does not matter much to the world. You need to start small. And what you have in abundance is open-mindedness and curiosity, the great kick starters devoted to one’s cause.”
Releasing Yourself
“In a nutshell, in order to be happy, you need to accept yourself. Accepting yourself is one of the most important and difficult tasks we face in our lives. Indeed, accepting oneself is one of the easiest, simplest and most rewarding things you do for yourself — a low-budget, maintenance-free formula for being happy.”
Harmony and Sustainability
“…on an individual level, ikigai is a motivational structure to keep you going, to help you get up in the morning and start doing chores. In Japanese culture, in addition, ikigai has much to do with being in harmony with the environment, with people around you and with society at large, without which sustainability is impossible.”
The Joy of Little Things
“No matter where you are in the world, if you make a habit of having your favourite things sooner after you get up (for example, chocolate and coffee) dopamine will be released in your brain, reinforcing the actions (getting up) prior to the receipt of your reward (chocolate and coffee).”
Being in the Here and Now
“…make music, even when nobody is listening. Draw a picture, when nobody is watching. Write a short story that no one will read. The inner joys and satisfaction will be more than enough to make you carry on with your life. If you have succeeded in doing so, then you have made yourself a master of being in the here and now.”
As you see, ikigai is not about success or professional mastery.
A few things I like about it are: we can have more than one, it can change over time — transforming as we grow — and it’s considered as the process of cultivating our inner potential.
So, we all have our ikigai, we just need to give ourselves time to find it.
To me, ikigai is: modeling the clay until it takes the shape I imagined; preparing a healthy dinner; feeling the sun on my skin; singing my favorite song in the car; going for a walk and listening to the sounds of nature; exercising in the morning; sewing; working on my passion projects; watching the sunset.
Sometimes ikigai is defined as “the reason to get up in the morning”.
Well, if that’s the source of our happiness, we should always ask ourselves “What is one simple thing I could do today and that I would get up for?”.
Find it and pursue it with all you have.
