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A few years back, I stumbled upon a post on Psychology Junkie, The Japanese Philosophy You’ll Love, Based On Your Myers-Briggs® Personality Type. I want to say I did the mature thing and read the entire post, enthralled with how each archetype sees the world. But I did not do this. Instead, I jumped to my archetype (ENTJ) and learned about the Japanese idea of ikigai (eek-ee-guy).
What is ikigai?
At first glance, ikigai is a straightforward concept of discovering a fulfilling career. First, you need to understand and be able to answer the following:
What do you love to do?
What are you good at?
What can you be paid for?
What does the world need?
Second, where these four concepts overlap, you have your ikigai. This idea is quite simple to understand. Most of us can answer these questions off the top of our heads. However, the challenge is not answering each of these questions individually but finding the same answer to all four. That is why ikigai is simple to understand but much more challenging to put into practice.
Haven't We Already Talked About This?
Ikigai shares a great deal with the career decision model developed by Justin Sung (see my Career Decision Model blog post). Both require an understanding of yourself and the world around you. If there is a difference, Sung's model can be applied to any decision, while ikigai adds the element of monetary compensation. When I take others through this process, I start with Sung's model and then move to the ikigai if needed. There is an overlap between the two in the need for honest self-reflection. If we answer with beliefs and thoughts that are not our own (whether forced upon us or because we seek acceptance and validation), we will fall short of a fulfilling career. It could be missing the mark by one aspect of our ikigai, or we may miss all four and find ourselves unfulfilled in our career choices.
What if I Can Get to Two Out of Four?
It is simple to understand how being unable to answer any of the four questions of ikigai will lead to an unfulfilling career. But what if we only get to two aspects? Here, I will introduce some familiar words in the career decision world.
Passion
Mission
Vocation
Profession
Each word is a positive in career searches, or at least we believe they are. But each of these is a way of thinking of a career that may not fulfill us in an activity we will do for many decades. I will break each of these down.
Passion is back to haunt us from Sung's Decision Model. In ikigai, passion is the intersection between what you love and what you are good at. That is why passion is an incomplete way to look at the world. For example, I know several people who have a passion for playing video games - they love them and are good at them. While there are professional gamers, finding someone to pay you for playing video games is difficult. While the presence of professional gamers or live-streamers implies a need for this service in the world, it is more of a question of whether you can find an unfilled niche in this competitive world. Passion could start as a hobby, but it takes more to make it a career. Passion is guided by only looking at your pleasures without looking at the world.
Mission is the combination of what you love with what the world needs. You felt driven to do this. But this could easily be satisfied with volunteering. Serving those in need can be what you love and the world needs, but you need more to turn your mission into a career. Mission is one of two terms from this model that seeks to connect our desires and the real world.
A vocation is what you end up with when you only look at the world without respecting your desires. Vocation is the intersection of what the world needs and what others will pay you for. Many of us take up a vocation at some point in our lives. Maybe it is working in fast food in high school or at the library when we were in college. A vocation is often how we pay the bills while we pursue our true dreams. For long-term planning, though, it is necessary to reflect on your goals. I hope no one ends up in a situation like the movie Office Space, where every character showed up to work as a vocation and nothing more.
Finally, we have a profession. This one is tricky because we often hear others who, trying to be helpful, suggest we find a profession that fills us with purpose. Well, that combination is your ikigai! However, the definition of a profession is the interesction in what others will pay you for and what you are good at. This path is often where the most basic career advice in high school will lead you. It is the simplest answer to a career decision - Where is your talent, and how much money will it make you? Professions, though, are unsustainable, mainly because it is so easy to be good at something and not enjoy it (check out the book What Made Maddy Run? by Kate Fagan). We are aiming higher.
Close But Not Quite - What About Three Out of Four?
As implied by the images above, it is possible to get close to our ikigai but fall short by one aspect. There are no names for these, but you will know you are in a situation like this by how you feel.
Love-Talent-Need
If we land in one, we have answered what we are good at, what we love, and what the world needs, but we are not making money. This situation seems to be a parent's worst nightmare - my child is doing what they love but not making any money! For better or worse, you need money in this world. I had a student in study hall who was intelligent but not applying himself. I asked him one day, "Do you like to have fun?"
"Yeah."
"Do you want to keep having fun in your life?"
"Well, yeah, of course I do!"
"Well, the older you get, the more money you need to have fun. To make money, you need a job. To ensure you have a job that pays you enough money to have the fun you want, you need to graduate high school. Graduating high school starts with passing Algebra 1."
"Oh, man! No one has ever said it that way."
He worked hard for the rest of the year.
Love-Need-Compensation
If we get to two, we have successfully answered what we love, what the world needs, and what we can others will pay us for. This area is not a terrible place to be in, but we may feel uncertain about our situation. It feels like we are lying or will revealed at any moment. With time and practice, you might be able to make it what you are good at, but for the moment, it is a risk to do a job you are not qualified for.
Need-Compensation-Talent
In three, we are good at something, the world needs it, and someone is paying us for it, but we do not love it. This area will be different for everyone. We can take being a doctor as an example. Some people love being a doctor, while others become doctors, but it is not what they love. In this situation, you are comfortable - but you feel empty. You might be able to make a situation like this work depending on how you spend your time outside of work. But while you are at work, you may feel a little empty despite all the perqs of the situation.
Compensation-Talent-Love
Last, we have area four, where we do what we love and are good at and what others will pay us for. But we are missing out on doing something that the world needs. We may feel satisfied in our work but begin to feel useless in the world - like we lack a purpose or a mission. If you are strong-willed, you may find contentment in this area if you can avoid comparisons with other people or ignore what others are saying (which is a skill all of its own). At some point, though, those who end up in careers in area four will feel a need to impact the world.
Final Thoughts
Let me be honest - if you get two or three out of four, your life is not guaranteed to be awful. There are a lot of people in the world who make up for what they do not get in a career in other areas of their lives. This path is not a terrible way to live and may be a great definition of work-life balance - ensuring that you leave time outside of your career to fill the needs that your career does not. But I will argue that it is possible to find your ikigai while also enjoying life outside your job filled with family, friends, and fulfilling hobbies. And if the opportunity exists, why not take advantage of a perfect career?
I hope you have enjoyed this blog post - I had a great time writing it! I encourage you to check out the inspirational article from Psychology Junkie to see what philosophy aligns with your MBTI archetype. If you want to learn more about ikigai, check out this article by Dr. Jeffrey Gaines on PositivePsychology.com titled The Philosophy of Ikigai: 3 Examples About Finding Purpose. A side note - I find it interesting that Dr. Gaines wrote this almost in prediction of the great resignation that would begin a few months later in early 2021.
And just for fun, here are my honorable mentions from the Psychology Junkie article.
ESFP - shizen - nature and the interactions between all living things
ESTP - datsuzoku - breaking away from convention and expectation
ISFP - wabi-sabi - embracing the imperfections and impermanence of life
ISTP - shin-gi-tai - the balance between action and reflection
ISFJ - gaman - enduring with patience and dignity
ISTJ - kaizen - continuous improvement
The sensors have all the good ones, especially the introverts!
Ready to discover your ikigai? Reach out today, and we will get started moving you from overwhelm and uncertainty to clarity and direction.
Happy Discovery!
Tom Chapman, TruePath Discovery Coaching
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