These 3 Questions Can Help You Find Your Ikigai
I wish they’d teach these at school
Self awareness journey : Day 2
Finding out who you are means acknowledging your weaknesses, strengths, what you like and what you don’t, what you’re passionate about, your most productive time of the day, what you value in life, and the list goes on.
Some of you may already know the importance of self-awareness, but for some of those who don’t, you can find the answer here.
Wait, how is this gonna help me find my ikigai?
Being aware of who you are can help you know where are you are right now, and where do you want to be in your work/career/goals/businesses. It also can guide you to a clearer path of career and even find your own ikigai.
Let’s get you right into it.
#1 How do you learn?
How many of you know already how you learn? — I obviously didn’t.
We were only taught what to learn and not how to learn, weren’t we?
Some of us might beat ourselves in the past for not understanding what the hell was going on in class even after 8 hours of studying or after you read those books ten times.
Well some of you who did, chances are you’re learning the wrong way.
Understanding how you learn contains tons of benefits. Not only does it save time in understanding lessons and learning new skills, but you can also stop being so hard on yourself for not getting what your professor says after one semester.
There are so many free tools on the internet to help you find your style of learning. The one I used was The VARK Model, but you can explore it further.
According to VARK, there are 4 ways of learning :
Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, Kinesthetics
#2 When does your mind work best?
Each one of us has our own biological clock that controls our body rhythms. You might notice there are certain times of the day when you are more focused and productive than the other.
You may be more focused in the morning and exhausted by the end of the day. Or it can be the other way around and the times may be different for everyone.
The truth is you can’t be productive all the time and that is completely normal.
In fact, your brain needs a lot of energy to work and think.
Some of you might have experienced those times when you feel exhausted even though you haven’t been doing anything much throughout the day.
Chances are a big portion of your energy is being used somewhere else without you even noticing.
Perhaps you’ve been worrying because of the pandemic, bad and vicious things that are happening around the world, or you might be wondering about where did it all go wrong.
Or it could be because you’re just spending too much energy on social media.
Yup. That is the reason you’re exhausted.
Remember, you need the energy to focus on things. If you focus on learning then that’s where your energy is used. And if you focus on using social media, that’s where it’s used.
Imagine how much energy you spent when you focus on all of those things that are outside of your control or the things that your friend has and you don’t.
If you can utilize the times when your mind works best, take enough rest, and not worry too much about the things that are outside of your control, sure enough, you could be more productive and feel good about yourself.
Find out more about your sleep and productivity schedule here.
#3 What do you value in life?
The things you value in life are the things that you believe are important and make up your belief system. It shapes who you are and determines your priorities.
Your value can drive your choices and behavior and it should be a guide in making decisions and how you proceed to act.
Some people might value altruism beyond economics and some people might value loyalty more than equality.
Understanding your life value can lead you to fullness because when you do the things that match your value, life is usually better.
There are a lot of tools on the internet to help you find your core values, I tried this one and it’s amazing.
Conclusion
Finding your ikigai is a lifetime learning process. It is not easy but not impossible if you keep looking constantly enough and follow through with improvements.
Asking these 3 questions to yourself can help you gain another insight from yourself.
#1 How do you learn?
#2 When does your mind work best?
#3 What do you value in life?
Once you figure it out, make the most out of it but don’t settle. There’s always room for growth.
