2. I (I’m my own coach)

Experience

In order to know what we are good at and what we love, we need our lived experience. It doesn’t have to be just full-time jobs. 2 months volunteering at a flower farm turned out to be my richest self-reflection material. So think about any experience you have had through part-time, full-time, volunteer, internship, household chores, leisure…

Experience also comes from experiments. We can easily fall into the victim trap when shame, blame or complain about not having experience. But no matter at what age and at which stage in life, we can always create one for ourselves. If it seems overwhelming to step into an unknown territory and create something new, consider it as an experiment – “don’t take it too seriously, it’s just an experiment”. This little trick helped me so much to overcome my overthinking and fear.

Knowledge

“How do I know what the world needs? How do I know what I’m good at?”

Learn and reflect

If we want to know what the world needs, we need to know what is going on out there. Read a book, listen to a podcast, take a course, or talk to someone.

But us alone with our own experience is not enough for an effective self-reflection. Taking advantage of what science knows about humans. Learn a bit about psychology, anthropology, biology… You will have aha moments understanding why you prefer walking your dog to going to a crowded party, or why you can’t go on a trip without a detailed plan while your friends just so easily spontaneously decide they will buy a one-way ticket to another continent tomorrow and will figure things out on the way.

Mindset

Carol Dweck showed us in her talk and research that our basic abilities can be developed and improved through dedication and effort – that’s a growth mindset. On the other side, fixed mindset people believe that our abilities are predefined and cannot be changed.

If you are an introvert and think that networking is not your thing, think again. If you say you are never good at numbers so you can’t take care of your finance properly, well, you will have a long way to go on this ikigai search.

Financial independence

It seems odd at first to bring money talk to this subject, but it should come as no surprise if we connect our financial independence with our freedom of choice. The freedom to create experiments and gain experience, the freedom to learn the knowledge and skills we want to learn, and the freedom to take a break when we need it the most. 

3. N (The power of Now)

How often do you say “That’s just the way I do it”, or “That’s who I am, I can’t change”?

All 4 elements above are equally important. But if I have to pick one that should be a precedence, I would say mindset. How many things that you thought couldn’t learn are in fact learnable?

4. D (Do)

Back to our third point in part 1, searching for ikigai is not a one-off task. You will be disappointed if you are trying to find an absolute answer. It’s a journey of defining and refining as we accumulate more experience, knowledge, growth mindset, and finance. So while you are on the journey, enjoy it.