Midlife is a time when a lot of women feel lost. We may have lost our identity due to divorce, kids heading off to college or work and leaving an empty nest, or job loss. Or what has felt comfortable for years, suddenly feels boring or tiresome but we have no idea what we want to do next.
A powerful tool for figuring out your next steps and moving from a midlife crisis to a midlife triumph is IKIGAI. Ikigai is the place where your passion, skills, mission and value intersect. It’s a place where you are most likely to work in “flow state” (when you are engaged in work and time flies.) It’s also the place where you are most likely to make the most money.
What is IKIGAI?
Ikigai is a Japanese concept that translates to "a reason for being" or "a reason to wake up in the morning." It's a philosophy that seeks to balance several dimensions of life:
What you love (passion)
What you are good at (skills)
What the world needs (mission)
What the world values (value)
At the intersection of these four elements lies Ikigai, the sweet spot where personal fulfilment, societal contribution, and professional success converge.
Finding your Passion.
What do you love? What would get you to jump out of bed in the morning? Do you even know?
Take some time to think about what you love. If you’ve been keeping a gratitude journal, it can offer clues since you don’t tend to be thankful for things you hate! Look at your Pinterest pages or Instagram feeds. What posts do you like and save? That also can show you what you love.
What did you love as a kid? What would you love to do if nobody was monitoring you? If you won the lottery, what would you do with your time? (Please be honest. If you love the idea of being a personal shopper, don’t say that you love providing hospice care because it feels more “worthy”.)
Discover Your Skills
Take inventory of your skills and strengths. What are you good at? If you work outside the home, where do you shine on your performance review? What qualities do your clients appreciate? If you’ve been at home, start to think of all the skills it took to keep things running smoothly. Running a home and raising kids is no small task. List technical skills that you have accumulated through work and life. Write it all down.
Discover Your Mission
Discover what the world needs from you. You can use Pinterest search or Google analytics to see where your skills and passions are needed. You can meet with people in your community to find out what they need. You can think about your own life and invent a product or service for an underserved market.
Discover Your Value
Find out what the world values. People want to pay you when you are an expert in solving whatever problem they have. If they are hungry and you make great food, they will pay you. If they have wrinkles and you smooth them out, they pay you. If they need help figuring out what to do with their lives and you can help them, they pay you! One of the best ways to see if people are willing to pay you is to hang out your shingle and sell things. Are you a good painter? Sell your art. Are you good at organizing stuff? Become a closet organizer.
To find out more about IKIGAI, read our book, The Selfish Season. We can’t wait to join you on your journey to more in midlife!
