According to the Japanese, everyone has their own Ikigai. Some have already discovered it, while others are still searching for it. Our Ikigai lies dormant within us, waiting to be awakened. People living on Okinawa Island, Japan, where the highest number of centenarians are found, believe that our Ikigai is the reason we get up in the morning. This concept is also associated with longevity and overall happiness and well-being. It encourages people to live a life aligned with their true passions and values.

However, we understand that searching for your purpose can feel quite stressful, especially if you’re unsure about what you want to do with your life or are at a crossroads and feeling lost. And if we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to find that one true purpose, it can become even more overwhelming. Lets discover it together!

Ikigai lies at the intersection of four key elements:

1. What You Love (Passion): Activities that bring you joy and fulfilment. What makes you excited? Which activities make you lose track of time? Is there a specific topic you find yourself drawn to and wanting to explore it deeper?
2. What You Are Good At (Profession): Skills and talents you excel in. What are you naturally good at? What seems easy for you? What type of activities do you feel gives you energy and satisfaction?
3. What the World Needs (Mission): How you can contribute to others or society. Thinking about what’s happening in your community, city, or country, what do you think needs to change or improve? What have you overcome and learnt in your life? How can you use your experience and learnings to help others who perhaps are struggling with the same issues?
4. What You Can Be Paid For (Vocation): Activities or skills that provide financial stability. Think about people you know, who you respect and admire related to the cause you are interested in. How do they earn their living? What kind of work do you love doing from which you could make a living? What skills or talents do you have that are needed for others?

Finding your ikigai means discovering where these elements overlap in your life. When they align, they lead to a fulfilling and meaningful life, where you wake up with a sense of purpose and joy each day.

Now take some time to write down your reflections. Below you can find the Ikigai diagram. You can print it if you wish so, draw your own diagram in your journal or on your laptop.

Source: Learning planet institute

Once you have finished filling in your Ikigai diagram, to explore your purpose further, we invite you to do a very simple, yet profound exercise. The exercise is called ‘’Back2back’’ and to do it, you will need to invite a friend or a colleague with whom you feel comfortable doing this exercise as it can’t be done on your own. The exercise can help you become more aware and understand even better what drives you in life, and what you love doing. To prepare yourself, try to find a space where you and your friend won’t be interrupted for the next 30-60 min and will both feel comfortable. You will need a sheet of paper, a pen and a timer to track the time.

To start with, sit with your friend back to back, you can choose to sit on the ground or on the chairs. The most important thing is that you sit back to back, feeling the closeness of your friend, but not facing each other. Why is that important? When we face each other, our facial expressions might unconsciously influence us and at times even block us from truly sharing what’s on our hearts when we sit back to back, we feel the presence of our friend, knowing that he or she is listening to us, but his or her body language won’t influence us. Instead, sitting back to back helps us reach the spaces in ourselves and our hearts, that we are not able to reach or simply don’t have time for in our daily lives.

When you have prepared yourself and the space in which you are, you can choose who will be the listener and who will be the speaker. There will be two rounds, so both of you will take the roles of both at some point, – the speaker and the listener. You just have to decide who wants to start the first round as a speaker. The listener’s role is simply to listen with absolute presence and write down everything that she or he hears the speaking telling, while the speaker needs to speak for 7 min answering one simple question:

Imagine that tomorrow you wake up in the morning and you are told that from this moment onwards you have to choose one thing, which you will do for the rest of your life and why. What would you do for the rest of your life and why?

And that’s it. That’s the only question you need to answer in those 7 minutes. We invite you to not overthink it or question why this specific question and not the other. By the end of the exercise, you will find your own meaning and reasoning for it. You might even be surprised by your discoveries. Enjoy the process and take it as it comes. One step at a time.

You might also wonder why 7 minutes. We have tested this exercise with different timings and discovered that 7 minutes is the perfect sweet spot – not too short and not too long. At some point in those 7 minutes, there might be a time of silence. It might feel that you don’t have anything else to say. Allow the silence to be and keep on going. What we discovered is that the silent moment is the moment of transition when we unconsciously switch – from speaking from the mind to speaking from the heart. Some real gems from the deepest corners of ourselves might come out from those silent moments. What the listener can do at the silent moment is to ask the same question again: what would you do for the rest of your life and why?

After 7 minutes are over, you switch the roles – the speaker becomes the listener and the listener becomes the speaker.

Once you both have spoken, you can now face each other and exchange the papers where each of you have been writing about the other. You can choose to read the paper yourself, however, it can be even more powerful, if the person who was listening to you, reads what he or she heard you saying. It’s your choice to decide how you want to approach the process.

Below we are providing you with some reflection questions, which you can use after you have finished sharing what you heard each other saying. Was there something very difficult about this activity? Was it easier to be the listener or the speaker? Was there anything that surprised you? Did you learn something new about yourself or your partner? What steps can you take to get closer to your purpose?

Now what’s left to do is to enjoy the journey and exploration of your purpose and passions in life. We hope that these exercises will help you get closer to understanding what drives you in life, what you love doing the most and what brings to your life flow, health, well-being and happiness.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ANPCDEFP. Neither the European Union nor the ANPCDEFP can be held responsible for them.