Finding your 'reason for being' through your IKIGAI

I recently read an incredible book called IKIGAI; The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life and I want to share with you some of the highlights and express my take on the concept as it was truly enlightening process for me.

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means "a reason for being."

The word "ikigai" is usually used to indicate the source of value in one's life or the things that make one's life worthwhile.

The word translated to English roughly means "thing that you live for" or "the reason for which you wake up in the morning."

As much as you might think, this doesn’t relate to me, or this sounds crazy. The concept of how you find your ikigai is a really great way to evaluate what you want in life and re-align your values and priorities.

How to find our ikigai, answer the below'

1. What you love?

2. What are you good at?

3. What can be paid for?

4. What the world needs?

If you answer these, you will most likely find there will be cross overs.

I think that process brings you close to finding your personal ikigai.

What I learnt about myself through the process of finding my ikigai:

• I love helping people more than anything else. The world needs love and so many people, situations and areas need help. Especially younger people as I look back on my teen years, the wild times, and can appreciate that we all grow and learn differently. Supporting women to thrive is my priority.

• I need to be creative in what I do and express creativity.

• Positivity is my core attitude, I need this to be 'Tia'. Learning about this, sharing this and manifesting this is what I love.

• Self expression is fundamental to me. As well as love and connection.

• Nature and the world. Exploring and finding ways to connect with nature, respect and appreciate it. Conserve and build a better future is also important.

Putting this all together is an exciting process and I believe if you start living and planning your life around your IKIGAI you will feel more aligned from the inside out. And isn't that the point? To live a long and happy life that inspires you every day? Knowing what you value and enjoy is the first step. That will evolve as you do, but keeping in mind your ikigai when making life decisions is a great way to live in my opinion.

To purchase:

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

Book by Albert Liebermann and Hector Garcia

IKIGAI QUOTE HIGHLIGHTS DIRECT FROM THE BOOK

Stress & Existential Crisis:

• “Many people seem older than they are. Research into the causes of premature aging has shown that stress has a lot to do with it.”

• “The American Institute of Stress investigated this degenerative process and concluded that most health problems are caused by stress.”

• “Those who give up the things they love doing and do well lose their purpose in life. That’s why it’s so important to keep doing things of value, making progress, bringing beauty or utility to others, helping out, and shaping the world around you, even after your ‘official’ professional activity has ended.”

Morita Therapy:

• “Many Western forms of therapy focus on controlling or modifying the patient’s emotions. In the West, we tend to believe that what we think influences how we feel, which in turn influences how we act. In contrast, Morita therapy focuses on teaching patients to accept their emotions without trying to control them, since their feelings will change as a result of their actions.”

• “Logotherapy and Morita therapy are both grounded in a personal, unique experience that you can access without therapists or spiritual retreats: the mission of finding your ikigai, your existential fuel. Once you find it, it is only a matter of having the courage and making the effort to stay on the right path.”

Flow:

• “The happiest people are not the ones who achieve the most. They are the ones who spend more time than others in a state of flow.​”

• “In order to achieve this optimal experience, we have to focus on increasing the time we spend on activities that bring us to this state of flow, rather than allowing ourselves to get caught up in activities that offer immediate pleasure.”

• “Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.”

• “Japanese people often apply themselves to even the most basic tasks with an intensity that borders on obsession.”

• “Our ability to turn routine tasks into moments of microflow, into something we enjoy, is key to our being happy, since we all have to do such tasks.”

• “Artists, for example, who carry the torch of their ikigai instead of retiring, have this power. Art, in all its forms, is an ikigai that can bring happiness and purpose to our days. Enjoying or creating beauty is free, and something all human beings have access to.​”

• “Artists know how important it is to protect their space, control their environment, and be free of distractions if they want to flow with their ikigai.”

• “Many such artists might seem misanthropic or reclusive, but what they are really doing is protecting the time that brings them happiness, sometimes at the expense of other aspects of their lives. They are outliers who apply the principles of flow to their lives to an extreme.​”

• According to Csikszentmihalyi, in order to focus on a task we need:

• 1. To be in a distraction-free environment

• 2. To have control over what we are doing at every moment ​

Ogimi, Okinawa:

• “We realized right away that time seems to have stopped there, as though the entire town were living in an endless here and now.”

• “Many Japanese people never really retire—they keep doing what they love for as long as their health allows.”

• “The Japanese are skilled at bringing nature and technology together: not man versus nature, but rather a union of the two.”

• “Okinawans live by the principle of ichariba chode, a local expression that means ‘treat everyone like a brother, even if you’ve never met them before.'”

• Celebrations seem to be an essential part of life in Ogimi.​

Slow Living:

• “Being in a hurry is inversely proportional to quality of life. As the old saying goes, ‘Walk slowly and you’ll go far.’ When we leave urgency behind, life and time take on new meaning.​”

• “Looking back, our days in Ogimi were intense but relaxed—sort of like the lifestyle of the locals, who always seemed to be busy with important tasks but who, upon closer inspection, did everything with a sense of calm. They were always pursuing their ikigai, but they were never in a rush.”

• “They are always busy, but they occupy themselves with tasks that allow them to relax. We didn’t see a single old grandpa sitting on a bench doing nothing.​”

Secrets of the Centenarians & Supercentenarians:

• “Over the course of a week we conducted a total of one hundred interviews, asking the eldest members of the community about their life philosophy, their ikigai, and the secrets to longevity:

• Don’t worry

• Cultivate good habits

• Nurture your friendships every day

• Live an unhurried life

• Be optimistic”

• “Eat and sleep, and you’ll live a long time. You have to learn to relax.” — Misao Okawa (117 years old)

• “I’ve never eaten meat in my life.” — María Capovilla (116)

• “Everything’s fine.” — Jeanne Calment (122)

• “Your mind and your body. You keep both busy, you’ll be here a long time.” — Walter Breuning (114)

• “I just haven’t died yet.” — Alexander Imich (111)

• “Food won’t help you live longer…The secret is smiling and having a good time.”

• “My secret to a long life is always saying to myself, ‘Slow down,’ and ‘Relax.’ You live much longer if you’re not in a hurry.”

• “The key to staying sharp in old age is in your fingers. From your fingers to your brain, and back again. If you keep your fingers busy, you’ll live to see one hundred.”​

Longevity Diet:

• “One hundred percent of the people we interviewed keep a vegetable garden, and most of them also have fields of tea, mangoes, shikuwasa, and so on.”

• “Locals eat a wide variety of foods, especially vegetables. Variety seems to be key. A study of Okinawa’s centenarians showed that they ate 206 different foods, including spices, on a regular basis. They ate an average of eighteen different foods each day, a striking contrast to the nutritional poverty of our fast-food culture.”

• “They eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. At least seven types of fruits and vegetables are consumed by Okinawans on a daily basis. The easiest way to check if there is enough variety on your table is to make sure you’re ‘eating the rainbow.’ A table featuring red peppers, carrots, spinach, cauliflower, and eggplant, for example, offers great color and variety. Vegetables, potatoes, legumes, and soy products such as tofu are the staples of an Okinawan’s diet. More than 30 percent of their daily calories comes from vegetables.”

• “Grains are the foundation of their diet. Japanese people eat white rice every day, sometimes adding noodles. Rice is the primary food in Okinawa, as well.”

• “Eat fish an average of three times per week.”

• “Tofu, Miso, Tuna, Carrots, Goya (bitter melon), Kombu (sea kelp), Cabbage, Nori (seaweed), Onion, Soy sprouts, Hechima (cucumber-like gourd), Soybeans (boiled or raw), Sweet potato, Peppers”

• “Okinawans drink more Sanpin-cha—a mix of green tea and jasmine flowers—than any other kind of tea…Okinawans drink an average of three cups of Sanpin-cha every day.”

Other Memorable Quotes:

• “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” — Aristotle

• “The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” — Washington Burnap

• “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” — Viktor Frankl

Hope you enjoyed and let me know what you think of the concept and book!

TM