Most working adults will dedicate half their lives to a job. If this thought of this doesn't fill you with some sense of satisfaction, and instead fills you with dread or anxiety, it might be worth answering the questions below to help steer you towards what would fill you with satisfaction.
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Start with by writing out the answers to these questions:
💛 What do I love to do?
👌 What am I good at?
🌍 What does the world need?
💸 What can I be paid for?
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It's worth keeping in mind, personal and professional fulfilment doesn't happen overnight. Give your ideas and answers time to breath, you wouldn't expect a newborn to start to pay rent the moment it's born, purpose and passions should be treated with the same care. It's all about planting a seed today that will slowly start growing in the background. (Fun fact: Did you know that when we write down goals our mind will subconsciously start to direct us there!)
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Does a common thread start to appear? If not, try these questions (and think outside the box!):
💛 What podcasts do I love to listen to? Who do I love to spend time with and why? What activities could I do all day? What could I talk at length about?
👌 What skill do you currently have? What courses have you taken? What have you received accolades for? What did you do in uni?
🌍 What does your direct community need? What does your wider community need? What do you hear your co-workers complain about? What do you hear your friends complain about?
💸 What are things that people pay money for? Think investing, consulting, freelance work, property, teaching languages.
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This Venn diagram was originally created by astrologer Andrés Zuzunaga, inspired by his work with natal charts. It is sometimes called the Ikigai Venn Diagram originating from Japan but this article explains that the correlation between the Japanese concept of Ikigai and Zuzunaga's Venn Diagram was born when entrepreneur Marc Winn thought it would be a good idea to merge the Purpose Venn diagram with Ikigai and share it in a blog post. At that time his only knowledge of ikigai was from Dan Buettner's Ted Talk on How to Live To Be 100+.
Either way, it's a helpful framework to help you start to think about living a more fulfilled life. What other tools have been helpful for you? Let us know!
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