Ikigai – The Japanese way of finding the meaning of life

Have you ever wondered what a person that seems to enjoy Mondays as well as Sundays is doing different than you? Why some seem to get up early easy, ready and in anticipation of their day ahead while you seem to drag yourself from one annoying task to the other?

The Japanese concept of Ikigai might shed a light for you on that. Ikigai, put in simple terms, is what gets you up and keeps you going with a sense of joy and fulfillment.

Ikigai (生き甲斐) is deriving back to the Heian period (794 – 1185). Throughout time, the concept of Ikigai had a few different meanings. Today, Ikigai has two common connotations:

• Ikigai as special activities or life circumstances (ikigai taishō). Nature (especially gardening), community (especially family and friends), art and music would fall under that category, only to name a few.
• Ikigai as a state, a “sense of life” (ikigai kan). It involves a subjective sense of meaning with a deep happiness of being alive. In French, it is described as “raison d’être“.

Ikigai as a Sense of life

Finding your Ikigai is a closely linked to achieving the State of Flow which is described as being completely immersed in a task with a sense of energized focus, deep enjoyment and full involvement with the task at hand (check out this article If you want to know more about the State of Flow).

It is also linked to longevity, an everyday sense of happiness and meaningfulness. The basic theory behind Ikigai is to find something in your life that connects these 4 main qualities:

• What you love
• What you’re good at
• What you can be paid for
• What the world needs

In theory, finding the intersection between those aspects will lead to finding your Ikigai, your sense of life. Of course, solely knowing what your Ikigai is will not bring you life-lasting happiness. You should then try to align your life according to your Ikigai, keeping it in mind and heart from the moment you wake up until falling asleep at night.

On this accord, it is important to note that all of those four qualities need to be matched in order for it to be Ikigai. If for example you find something you’re really good at and love at the same time, but you can’t make any money of it or it is really for no value to the world, it would be a passion rather than an Ikigai.

Looking at the Ikigai Venn diagram might give you the best overview over this basic concept:

The Benefits of Ikigai

„The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.“

Hector Garcia & Francesc Miralles, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

Longevity

Okinawa, an island southern off mainland Japan, is seen as a hotspot of the Ikigai philosophy. This particular island is also known as the ‚island of centenarians‘, inhabited by an active, non-retiring and purpose-driven population.

Besides the mild weather, healthy and vegetable-rich diet as well as their relatively low-stress lifestyle, their purpose-driven spirit is counted for this high percentage of people living well over 100 years.

In the book “The Blue Zones” by Dan Buettner, he studied areas around the world like Ikaria, Greece; Sardinia, Italy or Okinawa, Japan. One common factor of those places where people tend to reach exceptionally high ages is that even though they may use different words for it, having a “purpose in life” seems to be a strong uniting factor.

The hypothesis that a positive outlook and purpose in life have positive affects on physical health and therefore leading to a higher life expectancy is supported by different studies:

In 1994, Toshimasa Sone and colleagues conducted a seven-year longitudinal study on adults of ages 40 – 79. They found significantly lower mortality rates between those participants that seemed to have an Ikigai in their life than those who don’t, even after controlling for different variables like smoking, stress or medical history. In addition, people that have a perceived purpose in life tend to have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

One factor to be included critically is, that they operationalized whether or not someone has an Ikigai as this question: “Belief, that one’s own life is worth living“. It is questionable whether this aspect of perceived worthiness of one’s life covers all aspects of the concept Ikigai.

Resilience

The positive effects of an Ikigai may also have to do with how people focus their attention. In the face of challenge or threat, people that have a strong sense of purpose seem to be more resilient.

Instead of falling into negative thought spirals, depression or anxiety, others seem to rise from challenge with a sense of accomplishment and personal growth. The book Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb investigates this phenomenom in more depth.

Focused attention

Whilst having a sense of purpose seems to be a protective feature in the face of threat, it could also have great effects on everyday life. Someone that has an inner drive and direction towards something might be less distracted by those 100 temptations we have to face every day.

With a focused energy, one is more capable of blocking out the unnecessary chatter of the outside world. One is less likely to be torn apart by the unceasingly stream of claims, demands and directions. Instead of having their energy all scattered around many different things, a person with a strong sense of purpose has their energy focused on a handful self-selected aspects of life which will lead to progress and growth instead.

The ability to focus one’s attention benefits all aspects of one’s life greatly, whilst seemingly being an impossible task to us nowadays.

It leads to the ability of being present instead of letting the mind’s habit to follow one thought after another rule one’s perceived reality, ultimately preventing one to ever be here.

“Ikigai translated into English as ‘life purpose’ sounds quite formidable, but ikigai need not be the one overriding purpose of a person’s life. In fact, the word life aligns more with daily life. In other words, ikigai can be about the joy a person finds living day-to-day, without which their life as a whole would not be a happy one.”

Akihiro Hasegawa

5 Pillars to finding your Ikigai

In his book Awakening your Ikigai by Ken Mogi, he proposes these 5 pillars that enhance your Ikigai:

• Start small
• Accept yourself
• Connect with the world around you
• Seek out small joys
• Be in the here and now

Mogi advices us to keep those 5 pillars in mind the first few hours after waking up. Through this, your brain will slowly accustom to this way of thinking and living.

Questions for finding your Ikigai

The question about what we really want in life probably passed everyone’s mind every once a while but is more often than not brushed aside. I get that. With all our responsibilities, to-do lists and everyday stressors, thinking about your life’s purpose may seem daunting or simply silly.

If you never really took some real time out of your day to ask yourself what you really want from your life, it is absolutely understandable that you have no answer to that question at hand. Many people don’t really spend time with themselves and feel exactly the same.

If this is the case for you, I have a few questions that you can ask yourself for the next few days or weeks before going to sleep. It won’t take you long, but you will with time get a clearer and deeper insight into parts of yourself that you have been neglecting.

• If anything was possible, I would …
• As a child I loved doing …
• On vacation I love to …
• If I were a computer avatar, I would …
• People who do … inspire me
• I lose track of time when I …
• If I knew I would die in one year, I would…
• At the end of my life, I want to look back on …
• I forget the whole outside world when I …
• The optimal version of me would …
• What core values do I want to nourish?

Some of those questions may resonate more or less with you. Keep them close to your heart as they may pop up when doing something completely random. If you grow more comfortable with asking yourself things like that, other important questions might come up for you that guide you closer to yourself.

Final Words

If you want to live a life more purposefully, the concept of Ikigai is great for that. Asking yourself a few basic questions about what you really want in life brings you closer to yourself – and ultimately closer to a life lived with joy.

Of course, finding a purpose is never easy or a single-pointed way. Think of it rather as an inner drive, a certain direction that navigates you through whatever life throws at you.

It also doesn’t have to be specific. My inner drive has always been to share healing and ease suffering. After I really realised and got clear that this was what made me want to live, a lot of confusion and unnecessary baggage vanished.

Through getting an idea about what is important to you on a very deep and fundamental level, all other aspects of life can be more easily classified and tackled. Especially nowadays, there are almost endless opportunities and possibilities. This can be very confusing and scary, but for someone who knows what matters for them deep down, it feels more like a fun dance with many colourful requisites.

“It is much more important to have a compass pointing to a concrete objective than to have a map.”

Hector Garcia & Francesc Miralles. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life.