2 happy employees laughing at something on their laptop screen in an office

The people of Japan believe everyone has a reason to jump out of bed each morning and they call this ‘Ikigai’. It translates roughly as ‘the happiness of always being busy’ and is their secret to a long and happy life. Ikigai draws together the ingredients of living a purposeful life and for that we have to live by our values.

If you can answer these questions and link them together, you can begin to find your Ikigai:

What do you love?
What are you good at?
What does the world need around you?
What can you be paid or rewarded for?

If you can do what you love together with what you are good at you will have a passion

If you can do what you love together with what the world needs then you will have a mission

If you can do what the world needs and be rewarded for it then you will find your vocation

If you can do what you can be rewarded for alongside what you are good at then you will find your profession.

Venn diagram of Japanese principle of Ikigai - purpose in life

Ikigai is the intersection of our interests and strengths (what we can offer to the world) with the needs of the world around us, but it is also the essence of purpose.

Ikigai reveals that purpose relies on living our values, doing what matters to us at our core, doing what we love to do in the service of being useful and kind to others, or the planet. Whatever our passion, mission, vocation, or profession, one thing is guaranteed: they are all underpinned by our values.

Living your Values

Values are like a compass that guides your actions; they are why you do what you do when you commit to action. They move you towards your deepest desires for how you truly want to act in life. They are not feelings; they are choices about the actions you want to make. There are no right or wrong values and we all subscribe to many of the same, even across cultures, such as honesty, fairness, kindness and justice. But, deep down in our unique psyches, we prioritise a mix of different values individually.

When we know what these are, they can help us overcome difficult times and difficult emotions, by following the compass through whatever storm we are going through. In this way anxiety, depression, and anger do not prevail in driving us off our path.

Sometimes, our values get lost beneath social morals, demands and expectations. You may have a desire to live more sustainably and naturally, but the social pressure requires you to have all the modern measurements of success. Maybe you are an artist deep down, but are working in accounting because it pays the bills better. So, it’s not easy to do what you love, what you’re good at, and get paid what you need, without some compromises. But, what you gain is the motivation to jump out of bed with meaning and purpose every day.

Finding your values to achieve Ikigai

The realm of our life consists of our relationships, our leisure time, our work (paid or unpaid) and study, and our personal growth and health. In each of these areas, identify 3-5 of your most important values and bring them more consciously into the way you behave each day. Consider how much you are behaving like the person you want to be, in each of these areas.

Find your values by picking and grading if they are Not Important/Quite Important/Very Important, from
Next, find how closely you are actually living these areas of your life in relation to your values, in the bull's eye exercise

Very often we discover our values when we are caring, contributing and in connection with others. Purpose is revealed in the small moments of satisfaction we feel when someone smiles at something you did, or sighs with relief because of something you said. If you can recognise what value underpinned your action that caused this response in others, then you can capture some of the ingredients of ikigai.

If you haven’t a clue what your ikigai is yet, your mission is to discover it and don’t stop doing it, ever!