You may have come across career advice before that tells you to follow your passion. While this advice is meant well, it is not always very helpful.
- Firstly it may be rather unclear HOW you can do this, and doesn’t paint a full picture. Can you earn a living from it? Would you still want to do it if you HAD to do it every day and make your living from it? Are you any good at it? Does the world need this?
- Secondly, it sounds so easy – but that’s not always the case!
A very useful concept to help us to find our career sweet spot is the Japanese concept called Ikigai. Ikigai is a combination of the words “iki”, meaning “life”, and “kai”, meaning “result”, or “worth”.
There is no direct translation for the word Ikigai in English, but the closest to it is “your reason for getting up in the morning” or “the thing you live for”.
In order to find our Ikigai, there are 4 different aspects to consider:
- what do I love to do?
- what does the world need?
- what can I can get paid for?
- what am I good at?
It’s in the intersection of all 4 of these aspects that we find our Career Sweet Spot or Ikigai.
For more information on how to connect with your Ikigai, click here to watch my Skillshare class on the topic, or drop me an email.
