At the moment I am working on a Graduate Certificate of Professional Coaching through SIT. Not because I have a burning desire to be a life coach or health coach, although I acknowledge the great work they do, but because I am aware that much of my work as a Homeopath does involve some level of coaching, supporting people to see what is happening in their life and empowering them to make changes where needed – and a well chosen homeopathic remedy supports all that.
This blog has always been a bit random in my choice of topic, so anything I post about coaching tools should fit right in. I’m sure when I’m working on more integrative medicine learning next year you will see a divergence in topics there also.
My post today is about this awesome Japanese concept I learnt about, Ikigai, which is your purpose in life.
Before I go into it, I would like to point out that your purpose can change- it is not fixed, rather as you grow and learn and move through different stages in your life, the things that are important to you may well change. In addition you can use this as a tool to develop skills or work on changing your life.
The picture in this blog really illustrates what your Ikigai is: a venn diagram with four intersecting circles. Each intersection gives you information about your life, and if all four can intersect, that is your Ikigai.
To determine this, you take some time to reflect on four questions:
What do you love?
What does the world need?
What can you be paid for?
What are you good at?
These are not single answers, you write down everything you can think of for each category.
When you have completed that stage, you start to look at and combine the adjacent circles.
Consider the list of what you love and what the world needs. Are there overlaps? The overlap is your mission.
The overlaps of what the world needs and what you can be paid for is your vocation.
The overlap between what you can be paid for and what you are good at is your profession.
And finally the overlap between what you are good at and what you love is your passion.
Take all four of those overlaps, the digons on your venn diagram, and if you have the same answer in all four, that is your Ikigai.
Sounds great right? I completed this task and my Ikigai is health and supporting people to heal. I kept it broad to encompass homeopathy, pharmacy and integrative medicine.
But what if you don’t have overlaps or you can’t pull all four digons together? What if your passion is surfing but you can’t make money out of it? What if your vocation and/or your profession is accounting, but you no longer love it?
This is where you use it as a tool and consider what you can do in your life, what you can change, or how you can view something through a different lens to change how you feel about it.
Your passion is surfing and you can’t make money from it now- but can you get involved with teaching others on a volunteer basis now? This may translate further down the line to paid work.
You’re good at accounting, you get paid well, and people need accountants, but you don’t love it. Consider what you do love? Is it that you want to help people starting out in business who have zest and enthusiasm for what they are doing instead of larger or more established businesses? Is it your current position that is not working for you? How can you change that? This could be diversifying what you are doing to work with a range of businesses, or looking for a change. It may not be an immediate change- particularly when you have a family to feed and need to keep a roof over your head- but it may open your eyes to other possibilities.
Whatever your way forward, the answer is within yourself.
Coaching sees you as a whole and competent person, capable of making your own decisions. A coach is there to support you, to challenge you, to hold you accountable- but not to make the decision for you or influence you. In this I see it complement homeopathy so well, as there is never a wrong or bad answer, just support for you in where you are at a particular time.
Do you have an Ikigai? Would love to hear what it is, or what your passion, mission, profession or vocation is in the comments!