Find Your Way – And Your Why

It’s way too easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind and miss the forest for the trees. What you need is a dose of ikigai – an ancient Japanese concept, now having a modern moment, that just might help you find your true direction.

- Anna Davies

If you had asked me to describe my life five years ago, I would have cited a trifecta like “driven, full and fun.” I was 30, working a cool job and moonlighting as a young-adult novelist. Not to mention training for a marathon, raising funds for charity and going on at least three dates a week. If I had any free time, I’d slip in a yoga class, attend a lecture, read a book – anything to get smarter, faster, better.

Beneath this impressive flurry of achievement, though, I sometimes asked myself if I was on a treadmill to nowhere. Rather than feeling satisfied and accomplished, I secretly felt stressed and burnt out. Something was missing and I only recently found a name for it: ikigai (pronounced EEkee-guy). A Japanese term that roughly translates as “reason to live”, ikigai is about having a sense of purpose in life – something that propels you out of bed each morning “ready to live fully,” says Héctor García, co-author of Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life. Not coincidentally, growing research has found that having that feeling can extend and enrich your life: it cuts the risk for heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and depression and the resulting stress reduction has even been shown to improve your sleep quality and sex life. Japan, where ikigai is a revered tradition, has long boasted the highest average life expectancy in the world.