Ikigai is a Japanese philosophy that means "the reason for being" or your purpose in life.
To determine what your ikigai is, you have to answer 4 questions and ideally give as many answers as you can - at least 5 answers per question if you can (but again, more is better). It's fine to repeat answers to multiple questions.
Here are the questions:
1. What do you love doing?
2 What are you skilled at? Can be a tangible skill e.g sports or a soft skill e.g communication
3. What can you be paid for? E.g. coaching, selling, consulting
4. What does the world need? What can you contribute to the society?
After finishing answering the questions plot them out in a Venn diagram as show below:
If you find any intersection among the 4 questions, you just have identified your Ikigai. 💡
Here's some inspiration as you might have skills or hobbies that you can actually monetize and help other people. I once read an anecdote of a guy who loves to play chess and ended up teaching kids on how to play chess. He's good at chess, enjoys playing, found a way to get paid for it by teaching others, and what he does not only train kids to be better strategic thinkers, but also bring joy to kids and their parents. 😊
