Happy New Year everyone!
We hope you are all doing well and that you are ready to enter 2021. New year, new intentions! As 2020 has been a challenging year, we all have to take a breath and set our intentions for the year to come. The time has come to be gentle to ourselves and balanced again in our daily life. This is why we want to give you tools on self-development during the next months, and it starts today!
Let us introduce to you the IKIGAI: it is a concept coming from Japan and it is a simple, but powerful exercise to learn more about yourself.
The word IKIGAI originally means “A reason for being”. If it sounds very serious said like that, it is actually just a great way to take stock on your current life and expectations. This exercise is a tool that helps to live a happier life and to achieve your goals. It can also help you finding what you want to do with your life and it permits to take time for yourself. And we all know that in those difficult times we are living, it is essential.
Why should you do it?
As nowadays fear and stress are everywhere, getting into self-development by doing exercises like this one could be a great idea.
Are you looking for a meaning in your life? Or do you find your job doesn’t make sense anymore? Do you feel lost about what you love or want in life? Then try to find your IKIGAI!
It may not make you discover miraculously what your dream job is, but it will certainly help you figure out what your passions, talents or inspirations are. It is a moment for you, just to write down about your personality. It has the power to question yourself about how your life is doing now and what you miss in your current life. Moreover, as you may know, writing things down helps to free the mind. And we like it!
How should you do it?
For this exercise, you are invited to take your time. Find a quiet place where nobody will come to interrupt, find the right atmosphere and start slowly. This is a “me time” project so there is no need to be perfect or to do it quickly. Take a notebook, a pencil and focus on yourself.
All you have to do is to answer these 4 questions:
-What do you love?
-What are you good at?
-What does the World need?
-What can you be paid for?
How does it work?
The IKIGAI project is made of 4 circles, 4 questions to answer, 4 numbers that define different aspects of your life and personality, and finally, your IKIGAI. Find the explicit diagram below:
Let’s get deeper into the 4 questions you have to answer.
- What do you love?
This part is all about your passions, what you used to do and love doing as a kid for hours without noticing time was flying, what gives you joy. Remember that nobody is going to read you, so just write down everything you want. Make a list, as long as possible and write down whatever comes to your mind. It can be creative activities, social moments, anything.
- What are you good at?
Here, you should write down all your talents. And by “talents”, we mean things you can do easily. Draw a list of all your skills in every domain possible. If it is hard, you can maybe ask your friends and family to tell you what they think you are good at. These are things you do spontaneously, without finding it necessarily that difficult. Maybe things you do more easily than other people. It doesn’t have to be incredible talents, even “small” skills matter.
- What does the World need?
This question is about thinking of causes that matter to you. What could you be proud of doing in our society? In what would you invest your time to help people? What makes you feel angry? These are questions you can ask yourself to find what might work better in the World and what you could do about that. In a way, it is about finding your values.
- What can you be paid for?
This question is all about figuring out your professional skills. The missions you can achieve that have a value in the professional world. What activities can you do well and be paid for? If you need a little help to find your professional skills, you can try to remember all the jobs and missions you have done in your life. Draw a list of all the competences you used to accomplish your missions.
How to find your answers?
Now that you have written your answers in each category, it is time to think about how to link your passions, your skills and your values together. Indeed, finding your IKIGAI is in fact finding out some activities or jobs that answer to all these questions at the same time. It could be your perfect goal! Your IKIGAI should make you feel useful, fulfilled, secure, proud and happy in your life.
The most important thing is to try to link all these answers together to find the right thing for you. For instance, if we take the number 4 of the IKIGAI diagram, it is a mix of these three questions: What do you love? + What are you good at? + What can you be paid for?
It will, of course, give you a lot of information about yourself, but not your true IKIGAI. In fact, if you find a job or an activity that links these 3 questions together, it would give you pleasure but you would feel useless. The reason is that there is not the answer of the last question “What does the World need?”.
Your IKIGAI = the combination of the 4 questions!
Now that you may have found all your answers, there are some questions you can ask yourself to apply this exercise in your life. Is your current job answering most of the things you have written? Or is it completely meaningless for you? Where can you start to change your life?
If you didn’t find any clear answer after doing this exercise, don’t worry. You already did a great job! Either way, you’ve taken time just for you and found out more about yourself. It was, at least, a good way to remind you what you love, what you can do and what your main values are. Moreover, you can do this exercise as many times as you want in your life. We recommend to do it every year and see your evolution.
Thank you for following us and for doing this self-development exercise with our team today! We wish you a wonderful week.