Careers, courses and ikigai

I, along with many westerners, first came across ikigai as a career decision-making tool; a Venn diagram with four overlapping qualities in the ideal career: what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. I’ll come to the Venn diagram in a minute, as it’s brilliant, but I would like to start with an explanation of what ikigai really means to the Japanese.

Some have translated ikigai as “a reason for being”, but according to clinical psychologist Akihiro Hasegawa, the word is comprised of two parts: iki (which means life) and gai (which means value, or worth).

Life’s value sounds pretty grand, as if we all need to find a big picture purpose which we spend our lives seeking to achieve, but for the Japanese ‘life’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘lifetime’ but can also simply mean ‘everyday living’. Thus we see that ikigai is about finding a value in our everyday living, not necessarily a broad purpose for our whole lives. This is hugely important; according to Hasegawa, the Japanese find that small joys in everyday life result in a more fulfilling life as a whole.

What this teaches us is that when we choose our studies and ultimately our jobs and careers, the everyday experience is just as important as the overall purpose of the job. If you haven’t yet found your ‘passion’, then be reassured that the everyday joy of a job can lead to a life and career fulfilled! And if you do think you have found your passion, don’t forget to pay attention to the everyday; it is so important to find daily pleasure in your work, and not just to find each day a grind that you only put up with for some higher purpose.

For me, the wider purpose of a job has always been the driving choice for my career choices, but if I am honest my overall happiness in any specific role was down to whether I enjoyed it on an everyday basis. For me, I love roles that have variety and enable me to do something a little different each day; working with different people on new and interesting projects, as well as being able to spend time on my own. I have been fortunate to have had four significant roles that had this type of variety that I hugely enjoyed on a day-to-day basis. I have had two other roles in exactly the same industry and with the same fundamental purpose, but where the day-to-day activities were not enjoyable. Needless to say, these jobs were not a success for me and I moved on pretty quickly.

Anyway, on to that Venn Diagram…

If you haven’t seen this, it’s very good. It’s been doing the rounds since a 2014 blog post by serial entrepreneur Marc Winn. In the post he describes ikigai as ‘a reason to get up in the morning’, but also ‘the chance to live a long and happy life’; ideas which he takes from a TED talk by Dan Buettner. He then adds a standard career ‘purpose’ diagram and replaces the central word ‘purpose’ with ‘Ikigai’, resulting in the diagram we see above.

Such purpose diagrams, in various forms, had been widely used previously, but all of a sudden, by linking it with Japanese philosophy in a short, accessible blog, the idea went viral. It is beautifully simple and beautifully clear.

On the positive side you can see that if you find a career, job or role that sits in each of the four circles, you can almost certainly find your ikigai: a rewarding career, and a reason to get up in the morning.

But there is a warning too. If you only seek your passion, you may find the world doesn’t need it, and no one wants to pay you for it. If you are overly mission driven, you might overlook both your ability (or potentially your lack of it), and your likelihood of being paid. Similarly, if you purely seek a vocation or a profession, there is a risk that you just won't enjoy it.

Let’s look a little more closely at each of the four circles of the diagram.

What you love

Okay, ‘love’ is a strong word. But perhaps on this, just go back to the start of this article, to the original Japanese ikigai. You may have a passion, whether it be working with animals, performing music, or writing poetry. But love in a work context doesn’t necessarily have to be about passion. It can just be about enjoying the day to day aspects of the job: such as the satisfaction you get from a class you have taught well, a patient you have treated, or a set of data you have analysed!

What you are good at

I guess the real question is; how good do I have to be? Do I merely need to be competent? Or do I need to be the best? The truth is probably somewhere in between. But the real key is to make sure that you don’t compare yourself to others on this measure. It literally does not matter a bit if one of your classmates is better than you at something. It’s really not a problem if someone in your class could make a better scientist than you. There is every possibility that they won’t go on to be a scientist anyway, so if science is your strength, then go for it! It sounds like a cliché, but for most careers, what genuinely matters is that you go on to be the best you can be, not that you are the best at what you do.

There is an exception to this however…

What you can be paid for

For most activities you can either get paid, or not. Sometimes, however, it really does depend on how good you are at it. Professional entertainers and sports-people can get paid a lot, while amateurs may not earn a penny. And this is why so many parents have concerns when their child wants to go into the creative or sports industries. Well, if this is you, then it’s time to work out how you can make it work for you, and to make your case to your parents. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that giving up on your dreams is a sensible thing for any teenager to do, but I do think you need to understand the full range of options. For every Harry Kane, there are thousands of others working and getting paid for working in the football industry. For every Ed Sheeran there are thousands of others working in the music industry. So research all the different roles so you can make your case for doing what you love, and show that you can get paid for it!  

What the world needs

You could look at this, and consider it to mean ‘What there is demand for in the world’. Humbly, I’d suggest maybe applying a higher standard to this. After all, there is demand for all sorts of things that typically do more harm than good; tax avoidance schemes, hand guns, heroin, to name just a few. So what if we look for something a little more aspirational. How about instead we consider “What will make the world better?” All of a sudden you can really raise the game on your job, your career. In one fell swoop, you can consider your career a moral good; a moral imperative even!

So how might you go about deciding whether a particular career will make the world a better place? Well, I’m no deep thinking philosopher, nor am I well versed in every world religion, but perhaps we can all agree that the world will be a better place if there is less suffering, and we are able to improve each others’ quality of life? So that’s my suggestion for this circle. Will the career improve the quality of life for others?

Why not have a go now? Write down some of the different courses or careers that you are considering. If you are honest, do you think that they could potentially fit into all four circles for you?

Are there circles where that choice just doesn’t fit? And if so, is it worth the risk?

It’s a useful model, and I hope it gives you something to reflect on as you make your choices.

What next?

If you enjoyed this article, why not have a look at: Warren Buffett’s advice on finding your perfect career or Taking Careers Advice from Dave Grohl