What is your Ikigai?
Image courtesy of HubSpot.com
“Ikigai (ee-key-guy) is a Japanese concept. The word iki, means “alive” or “life,” and gai, means “benefit” or “worth.” When put together, it means your life worth, meaning, or purpose.
As it's the start of a new year and I was thinking let’s re-touch on what your “Why” is but with a different spin to talk more about your overall purpose.
The Japanese culture is very peaceful, calm and their lives are lived with purpose. I’ve only recently uncovered Ikigai and what it means and I feel it is similar to the recruitment process. For example, being curious as to why people, for example, are engineers in the first place, or why my clients do what they do. It helps you gain a more thorough understanding so as to best represent clients and candidates to make that right connection.
The easiest way to explain how to reach this place of purpose is to break it down into segments, and spend time thinking about your own personal journey:
Passion
What do you love? If you don’t know, think back to your childhood, or early adulthood, and what you enjoyed doing.
Vocation
Are you doing what you're good at? For example, if you know you are a more technical engineer, there's a great deal of value in pursuing this path and improving and growing your skills even further.
Profession
Choose a profession that you know, understand and enjoy, to forge a career and be paid for what you are good at. If you love your work, you never "work''a day in your life, as the saying goes.
Mission
What do you want to achieve out of life? Think about your overall ambition for your personal achievement and what you would want to be known for.
Someone who is better at explaining this is Tim Tamashiro who has written How to Ikigai: Lessons for Finding Happiness and Living Your Life's Purpose. He explores the concept and his own personal journey in this Ted Talk:
I've been on my own personal journey over the last year re-evaluating who I am and why I do what I do. My Ikigai is that I find joy in being helpful and being of purpose, connecting people both professionally and personally. With my profession, I connect engineers with my clients, helping both solve problems. Personally, I also like to help others by volunteering during my spare time. This brings me joy.
Image courtesy of Giphy.com
I encourage anyone to give Ikigai a go if you are feeling a bit adrift with your career or life goals. It's definitely a helpful process to go through.
About Simone Storey
Simone is an experienced Recruitment Consultant who specialises in recruiting intermediate through to management level engineers particularly in the structural, civil, mechanical and fire sectors. These particular sectors provide unique recruitment challenges, something of which she is very familiar with.
Her background also brings a results oriented and people focussed perspective, along with a solid understanding of the needs of both employer and employee. Simone has a focus on building these relationships to add value for both candidate and employer alike, for her recruitment is not merely a transaction.