Ikigai - a book summary + How to find yours?

 Do you want to live a happy life? How about a long one? And what if you could magically have both?

 That’s exactly what the concept of Ikigai offers.

The concept draws on Japanese philosophy practiced in the Blue Zones of Japan, areas containing the highest concentration of centenarians in the world.

 Main takeaway: Ikigai is your reason for living.

 It’s a way of life that offers:

•  A long life
• A sense of purpose
• Deep happiness

If this sounds appealing, the Ikigai summary, based on the book by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, is compulsory reading.

 

1.  Purpose
2.  Where does ikigai came from?
3.  three steps to find your ikigai.
4.  Longevity
5.  Morita therapy
6.  Flow
7.  Okinawan advice
8.  Diet
9.  Superfoods
10.  Movement
11. Ikigai summary

Purpose

Ikigai boils down to our inner motivation for a specific professional activity.

 It falls at the intersection of four essential elements:

•  What you’re passionate about
• Where your skills lie
• How you earn a living
• What the world need

 

Some people find their meaning quickly, while others must search for longer.

 But search you must, for ultimately, meaning is what gets us out of bed in the morning.

This is why Okinawans are often specialists in their craft and masters of attention – even to the extent that one practitioner had perfected the art of attaching individual hairs to a paintbrush.

 Whether your ikigai stems from your job or hobby, you should never retire or give up.

 If Okinawans are forced to retire, they engage in other active pursuits, such as gardening and community work, a philosophy which research has shown to improve health outcomes and longevity.

 Where does ikigai come from, and why is it becoming popular?

The Japanese philosophy of ikigai dates back to the Heian period, between 794 to 1185.

Okinawa is a Japanese island south of the mainland. The island has the highest proportion of people over 100 years old in the world and Ikigai plays a major role in Okinawan culture.

 But this Japanese secret isn’t just linked to the elderly. It’s becoming popular with younger generations both in and out of Japan who are interested in having meaningful work lives.

 3 steps to find your ikigai

Here are our top three steps to help you discover your ikigai:

 Step 1. Answer some questions to find your ikigai

 1. What do you love?

 If you’re currently working:

•  Are you absorbed in your work?
• Are you more excited about going to work than you are about leaving work?
• Do you have an emotional connection to your work results?

If you have a hobby or craft:

• Do you have a hobby or craft you can’t seem to get enough of?
• Are you more excited about your hobby or craft than anything else?
• Are you emotionally connected to your hobby or craft?

 2. What are you good at?

If you’re currently working:

•  Do people ask you for advice on topics related to your work?
• Are there parts of your job that come easily to you?
• Are you one of the best at what you do?
• Are you/Do you want to be an expert at what you do?

If you have a hobby or craft:

•  Do people compliment you on your hobby or craft?
• Does your hobby or craft feel intuitive?
• Are you one of the best at your hobby or craft?
• Are you/Do you want to be an expert at your hobby or craft?

 3. What does the world need?

If you’re currently working:

•  Is your work considered a high demand in the marketplace?
• Picture the next year, 10 years, and 100 years — will your work still be valuable?
• Are you solving a social, economic, or environmental problem?

If you have a hobby or craft:

• Is your hobby or craft in high demand or desirable in the marketplace?
• Will your hobby or craft still be valuable in the future?
• Is your hobby or craft solving a social, economic, or environmental problem?

4. What can you be paid for?

If you’re currently working:

•  Are there other people getting paid for the same work you’re doing?
• Do you make a good living/Will you eventually make a good living doing your work?
• Is there a healthy level of competition for your work?

If you have a hobby or craft:

•  Have other people made a career out of the same hobby or craft?
• Have people around you requested to buy what you do or make?
• Is there a healthy level of competition for what you do or make?

If you answered ‘yes’ to each question in the ‘If you’re currently working’ section, keep doing what you’re doing!

If you answered ‘yes’ to each question in the ‘If you have a hobby or craft’ section — congrats! You can take steps to turn your hobby into your dream career. Head to step 2 to start.

 What if your answers were no?

  Don’t worry; keep reading for more tips on finding your ikigai.

 Step 2. Brainstorm to find your ikigai

 Spend some time visualizing your ideal day from start to finish. Believe it or not, this is going to help you determine your ikigai and your true meaning. What are you wearing? Who are you talking to? What are you doing? Pay attention to how you feel. What makes you feel good at work?

  When you’re finished visualizing, make sure to write it down (or write it down as you’re visualizing).

 Next, look at the questions you answered ‘no’ to. Spend some time brainstorming and writing down small changes you can make to align your mission. Align this with what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.

  For example, did you answer ‘no’ to ‘Do you have an emotional connection to your work results?’ Maybe it’s because you’d rather work with clients face-to-face rather than on the phone, or maybe you’d like to apply for a leadership promotion at work.

  Or, if you answered ‘no’ to ‘Does your hobby or craft feel intuitive?’ Maybe you need to take some classes to strengthen your skills so that your work feels more natural.

 During this process, make your supreme focus all about finding your center, your ikigai.

 Note: It’s normal for doubt, fear, or negative thoughts to come up during this time. Facing your future can feel like a heavy challenge. The trick is not to attribute meaning to your doubts and fears. You’re stronger and more adaptable than you might think.

 Step 3. Study to find your ikigai

 You now have a picture in your head about what your ideal workday looks like. Now, consider studying, researching, taking classes, or hiring a coach or mentor. This step can help you discover if your vision meets your real-life expectations.

 For instance, maybe you want to be a wedding photographer. But, after mentoring under a professional wedding photographer, you realize it's not for you.

 Or, maybe you wanted to sell vintage fashion, but after looking into the process, you realized you didn’t want to keep up with so much inventory.

 If you go through this process and find that your vision meets your real-life expectations — congrats, it looks like you’ve found your ikigai. Move on to the next section to see how to put it in place. 

 If the opposite is true, don’t worry, it can take time to find your ikigai.

 Repeat steps one through three with a different job, hobby, or craft until you find your ikigai. If you still can’t find it, consider dabbling and experimenting with a variety of roles and/or crafts.

 Bake cakes, learn how to code, volunteer, start a book club, design a logo — it doesn’t matter. Keep experimenting until you find what speaks to you.

  Note: Finding your ikigai doesn’t mean you’ll love every aspect of your career. It means that you’re willing to accept even the not-so-perfect parts. This is because your career is aligned with what you love, what you’re paid for, and what the world needs.

 Longevity

A healthy mind and body are key to longevity, even though the former is often ignored.

A sedentary lifestyle affects our physical wellbeing

Lack of mental stimulation affects our psychological wellbeing (by weakening neural connections – it is thought that elderly individuals suffer from becoming trapped in their patterns and routines)

Therefore, it’s essential we exercise our brains. How?

Games like chess are cards are fine. But for better results:

• Get out of the house
• Meet people
• Socialise (counter loneliness)

Another important secret to cultivating longevity is the avoidance of stress, which has been shown to stimulate an immune response in the absence of infection, leading to faster ageing.

 To reduce stress:

•  Use mindfulness
• Practice yoga
• Exercise

Get science-based strategies for human improvement

 Morita therapy

Stress and burnout of common components of modern life, especially in a work-fueled Japanese society.

 Luckily, they have Morita therapy, originally developed to treat OCD and anxiety, but also effective in combating stress.

 Whereas Western therapies tend to focus on changing thoughts that influence our feelings and actions, Morita Therapy takes the opposite approach by asking patients to simply pay attention to their feelings without trying to change them.

 From there, they engage in new actions to simulate new emotions, which gradually replace the old ones.

 There are four stages to the process:

 

1. Complete rest – bed rest for one week, with no distractions or visitors
2. Repetitive activities – incorporate activities into daily routine – diary writing, walking, breathing exercises
3. Physical and creative pursuits – wood cutting and painting, for example, promoting tranquillity and joy
4. Re-integration – having been rebalanced, the patient is ready to re-enter the world and start the Ikigai process of discovering where to focus their attention

Flow

Flow is a concept coined by psychologist Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970’s and it occurs when we’re so engaged in an activity that we lose all concept of time, such is our level of immersion and joy.

 Perhaps you experience such feelings with your favourite hobby, to the point that you forget to eat or go to sleep on time.

 Not only can such activities increase our enjoyment of life, but also increase our longetivity.

 As such we should pursue such experiences over short-term hedonistic pleasures like overeating and media consumption, which are often just a hedge against boredom.

 Ideally, our Ikigai activity will produce such feelings, but failing that, our hobbies should.

 Pro tip: Your flow activity must be difficult enough to keep you engaged but not so hard as to be offputting.

 Therefore, as a beginner to a new activity/hobby, start gently. As a pro, push your boundaries.

 Okinawan advice

Here’s some time-tested advice from Okinawan centenarians:

•  Make of habit of greeting others, including strangers, with a smile and open heart. This will maintain friendships, please the grandchildren and provide constant stimulation.
• Don’t worry about what you can’t change, such as whether you’re good/successful enough (career etc.), as it drains energy and causes unnecessary stress.
• Rather, enjoy what you have. You have more than you think.
• Focus on good habits, like waking up early, to provide more quiet time to drink tea, clean the house and tend the garden.
• Grow your own vegetables and cook your own food, for a healthy diet.
• Maintain your friendships. Okinawans speak to their neighbours daily.

Diet

Research shows that the Okinawan diet contains incredible variety, comprising over 206 different foods, including numerous herbs and spices.

 Every day they eat five separate portions of fruits and vegetables and ensure variety with plates of food containing the colours of the rainbow.

 Thanks to it’s variety, it’s relatively simply fare

Has a base of grains – rice or noodles

Their diet contains 60% less sugar and 50% less salt than the rest of Japan

Variety is essential, but so is portion size.

 Okinawans recommend a concept called ‘hara hachi bu’, which means we stop eating when we’re 80% full and remain slightly hungry. To achieve it either:

•  Avoid desert
• Reduce portion size – using small plates

Research supports this approach. Fewer calories limit insulin-like growth factor 1, a protein which ages cells faster.

 Therefore, smaller portions is correlated with longer life.

 Superfoods

Green tea (particularly popular in Okinawa) is packed with antioxidants, and is shown to:

•  Reduce bad cholesterol
• Stabilise blood sugar
• Improve circulation
• Prevent infection

Locals even add Jasmine to the tea, which improves cardiovascular health and immune function.

 Alternatively, try white tea, which is even more antioxidant-rich.

 Another superfood consumed by Okinawans is the antioxidant-loaded citrus fruit ‘Shikuwasa’.

 If you can’t get your hands on that, try the following:

•  Other citrus fruits – lemons/oranges
• Broccoli
• Salmon
• Strawberries
• Apricots
• Movement

Physical activity, including simple, regular movement is essential for a long and happy life.

For Okinawans, it’s not the intensity of the activity but the constancy of movement.

•  Walking around their neighborhoods
• Working in their gardens
• Singing karaoke

This approach is supported by science, with prolonged sitting linked to detrimental health effects.

 Even though moving for five minutes every half and hour has been shown to mitigate the impact, most office workers neglect this practice.

 Also Okinawans, like the rest of Japan, engage in ‘Radio Taiso’, a simple society-wide exercise routine practised in schools, businesses and other groups.

 Ikigai summary

• For a long happy and life, find your Ikigai, or ‘reason for living’. In the West, we might consider this our life purpose.
• It’s found at the intersect of your passion, skills, potential for making a living and what the world needs
• It’s why Okinawans are masters in their craft and the art of paying attention
• When you’ve discovered your Ikigai, never give up or retire
• Longevity can be cultivated with a healthy mind and body.
• In Japan, Morita therapy is often used to combat stress through mindful awareness. Additionally, physical and mental stimulation are essential.