Ikigai - Find Your Purpose

According to japanese philosophy, in everyone's life, there's something called Ikigai. It's the purpose of our life, the reason why we wake up in the morning, something that motivates us to stay alive and keep going forward ... and it's also a thing that is pretty hard to find out sometimes. 

Ikigai connects our strenghts, our hobbies and things which are beneficial to the world around us ... If we find the activity (or activities) which connects all of these aspects, we are able to find our Ikigai. 

The fist time I heard about Ikigai was in a video by Levandaire. I've already described what Ikigai is, but now let's talk about it practically. How to find it? There is kind of a "template" for finding the Ikigai. Just by filling up all the parts, you can get closer to finding your life purpose.

Things I love 

What activities do you love? Think about all the things which make you forget about the time, about the world around you, think about the things you loved to do when you were a child. In the past, when someone asked me about my hobbies, I would usually say I like playing the guitar or reading books ... but in fact these are not the activities which make me feel like nothing else exist around me. I mean ... in terms of the guitar playing, the thing I really love about is the fact that I can sing with some music in the background. So my "real" hobby is singing. Try to be honest to yourself. Sometimes we think that we "have to" love and enjoy some things but inside we don't feel it.

Things I'm good at

We often think about our negatives, imperfections .. things we don't like about ourselves. Forget about the modesty and think about all the things you are good at. It can be anything - art, music, sport .. maybe you're good at learning languages, maybe you can do wonders with computer softwares or you're good at listening others and giving good advices. 

Things I could be payed for

Could someone pay your for your hobbies/talents? Think about those things, you could offer to someone else as a service. It can be baby sitting, translator job, writting articles, photographing ... 

What the world needs

What would you like to change in the world? How could you contribute to the world's well being? Again, think of all the little things that come up in your mind. 

In my opinion, people will always need something that will inspire them to reach their goals. Also I think that we should all realize, that the Earth is the only planet we're able to live on and so we should learn how to care about it. What are your ideas? And how could you use your talents to realize these things?

Don't rush .. :) Every time you get a new idea, write it down ... look for the things which match in all the parts of your Ikigai "flower". Sometimes it won't be that obvious, you have to learn how to read the lines ... but all the effort is worth it :)