LITMIR.BIZ

      © Kawin Harasai on Unsplash

      Finding your ikigai also calls for balance. As much joy as I get through work, it wouldn’t be enough to sustain me. A strong family connection, wonderful friendships and a beautiful little home all contribute towards making my ikigai richer and more meaningful. None of this is passively attained though. All relationships require a lot of effort and good communication; sustaining work and home requires compromise; and negativity, self-doubt and hardships are all facts of life. But your ikigai is what propels you forward in the darkest moments. Knowing the bad things will pass, and finding that element in your life that helps you achieve contentment is what ikigai is all about.

      A few years ago, I made it onto a female leadership course where we had to outline our business plan and explain how it would drive our visions. The main thing that resonated with me was that while all our companies might evolve to offer different services over time, the overall vision that took us there, and that we were trying to attain, wouldn’t change. That really stuck with me. And the same applies to your ikigai as well: just because you know what drives you, doesn’t mean you should stay in your comfort zone, and focus on that solely. It’s something you can come back to, and you need to be challenged, and push the boundaries. But having a goal and a key driver is important. Think of ikigai as the fuel to your motor – you need to make the engine run.

       How Do I Find My Ikigai?

      Chances are, you already know what makes you happy – you just haven’t thought about it as something as grand as your ‘purpose for being’ (which might sound a little scary). Finding your ikigai is at the centre of who you are as a person, and is the result of a combination of factors. We are too often pushed to categorise ourselves into small buckets (‘What is your occupation?’ or the dreaded dinner-party opener, ‘So what is it that you do?’) or reduce our entire essence or personality down to 140 characters. While it can sometimes be a fun exercise, in reality, we are far too complex for that. There is a saying in Japanese: ‘ten people, ten colours’. And the truth is that everyone is different. We all prioritise different things, and one isn’t necessarily better than another – so some people may get their ikigai through their children, for example, while others get it through their work.

      If you think of your life as a flower, then your ikigai is the centre, and is what holds it all together. The beauty of the flower comes from the sum of its parts: how beautiful the petals all look together. But individually, each petal represents a different facet in your life, and the things that transcend or tie them all together. One of the petals might be your profession, or your passion – or it could even be what helps you pay the bills each month. How do these facets impact each other? How can they (you) grow and gain strength? What can you improve?

      © Ben Sykes-Thompson

       Work

      Admittedly, Japanese working culture doesn’t have the best reputation. Office workers in larger corporations are overloaded, the hours are long and there is a distinct lack of work/life balance. These are just some of the criticisms you will often hear, with karoshi, or death from overwork, being a real and serious problem in Japanese society that needs addressing.

      There are a lot of positives to have come out of the Japanese working culture, though, and I definitely think they are worth bearing in mind and incorporating into your routine.

       —Business cards

      As someone who works in digital, I will often hand out my business card during a meeting, accompanied by a nervous laugh and a little joke (either, ‘Look how Japanese I am!’ or a reference to that scene from American Psycho, where they all compare their designs).

      I ordered my first business card about a month after I graduated from university – all that was on it was my name, email address and mobile phone number.

      It may seem like an outdated little ritual, but the number of opportunities that have arisen through handing my business card out has made me a full-blown convert.

      Unlike a hastily written thank-you email after a meeting, the kind that will most likely get archived immediately after it’s read, a business card acts as a physical reminder of the person whose name is on it. I’m a real fan of the physical and tangible reminder – and a business card is just that.

      © Corinne Kutz on Unsplash

       —Process

      We get into the nitty gritty of kaizen, or continuous improvement, later on, but suffice to say that many Japanese companies place a lot of focus on the process, and on ongoing improvement. It’s why praise doesn’t tend to get heaped on employees at Japanese companies – because the job is never really done. There is always something else to be learned; small, continuous improvements that can be made over time.

       —Seeing colleagues outside of work

      Part of the reason for the work/life balance stigma around Japanese working culture is the focus on nomikai – the after-work drinking, karaoke and socialising with colleagues that features so strongly. While I’m a big advocate for work/life balance, I do think there is so much you can get from seeing your co-workers outside work. It helps you build stronger relationships with them, find out a little bit more about what their motivations are and simply see them from another perspective. There’s nothing quite like dancing to Madonna with your boss and co-workers at a wedding to bring out a side of them you’d never see at your standard client meeting.

       —Otsukaresama – gratitude for work

      At the end of a long working day or week, you might say ‘otsukaresama!’ to your colleague or friend. Otsukaresama directly translates as ‘You’re tired’, but the essence is more about registering another’s

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