I'd found my Ikigai without even knowing it

Ikigai [’e-key-guy] translates into purpose of life/bliss – it is what gets you out of bed in the morning, it’s the key to a long and meaningful life, and therefore it is, at least in my humble opinion, worth knowing about 😊

According to Positive Psychology, Ikigai is a Japanese concept that is said to have evolved from the basic health and wellness principles of traditional Japanese medicine. This tradition holds that physical well-being is affected by one’s mental-emotional health and sense of purpose.

To me, that makes so much sense, as I’ve always felt, that when I’m in bad shape emotionally and stressed out, I get sick all the time – and when I’m relaxed and happy, I also feel healthier. When I’m ‘in a good place’ I tend to focus on the positive, which helps me to not pay too much attention to anything negative, like a headache, a sore back, a negative comment, or whatever the case may be. I notice it and move on, and I just feel lighter.

Procrastination leads to insight

A few days ago, I read a post on LinkedIn, and then I read the comments which lead me to follow a hashtag (#fearoffailure) – again leading me to more posts and comments and hashtags – and that’s basically the story of me procrastinating.

Whenever I procrastinate, it’s almost always because I can’t stop reading articles, posts, and comments – especially the comments. I love a good book, but it’s like, when I read a book, I need to get up for air occasionally. That doesn’t happen when I’m deep in the comments of an article or a post. I can go all day on a cup of coffee.

I was procrastinating again and noticed #ikigai several times in the comments, and nothing in the context told me, what it meant, so I had to ask Google for help. I mean, this was obviously something that had been kept from my attention. I was curious to know just how long, I’ve been kept in the dark about this.

So, I googled, “what is ikigai”, and I found articles from 2020 and videos on YouTube from 2017 – there was nothing new to this.

I returned to LinkedIn to check the dates on the posts, and I found, that people were just noticing this concept – just like me, I thought – until I realized that I’d found MY Ikigai a while ago, I just didn’t know about it.

In Danish, Ikigai is translated to livsformål, and I believe that all humans have one.

Everything will make sense

We are all here on earth for a reason. We all have a purpose, and some of us feel this right from the beginning. Others look for theirs throughout their lives and the rest don’t know about it or don’t believe in it.

If you feel stuck, like you’re in need of a direction in life, finding your purpose will give you just that. Everything will begin to make sense – it’s worth your time to dig deeper into this topic.

I recommend that you follow ‘The Ikigai Guy’ on LinkedIn, check out this worksheet Ikigai worksheet, and also, just google “ikigai” and “life purpose” - you’ll thank me later.

At the age of 50, I finally found mine by asking myself these four questions ☟

1. What do I enjoy doing?

2. What am I good at?

3. How can my effort create value for others?

4. Why is it important for the world?

My answers to those questions were:

1. I enjoy bringing people together in shared experiences.
2. I’m good at seeing how others can benefit from each other.
3. When I bring people together in projects or other creative scenarios, they can do amazing things together. They inspire and empower each other, and magic happens.
4. When people inspire and empower each other and make magic together, they also make amazing memories, and at the end of the road, memories are all we have to look back on. We need to make as many great memories as possible throughout our lives. We need them for the bad days, and we need them for the future.

❤ I’m all about bringing people together and creating memories ❤ - I can’t think of anything that makes me happier ❤

That’s my Life Purpose. That’s my Livsformål. That’s my Ikigai.

What’s yours? And please tell me, if you know, what’s the name for it in your native language – if it isn’t English?

Previously published on Medium