How to find your life's purpose

     In the Okinawan dialect, there is no word for "retirement." Instead, they use a word called ikigai. Ikigai (pronounced ee-ki-guy) translates roughly to "purpose" or "that which makes one's life worth living." Okinawan's live with a sense of purpose, whether it be raising a happy healthy family, nurturing their vegetable garden, playing a musical instrument or practicing karate. Ikigai is something that brings enjoyment or fulfillment. It gives you a sense of satisfaction in what you are doing. It makes you happy to do it.
     Karate or the martial arts can be that for some people. I know it is for me! If karate is not your ikigai, it may give you the physical or mental tools to find the ikigai in your life and keep you physically ft enough to continue experiencing it.
      Your ikigai is the passion in life that drives you and that motivates you.  It may be a hobby that you enjoy. It may be your job. It may be a sport that you participate in. It may be something that you create or express. The important thing is that it's something you enjoy doing so much that you can't imagine not ever being able to do it again.      
    Knowing your ikigai is important. It one of the key traits that leads to longevity in life. And, the Okinawan's have a long history of living very long lives as they have one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world. In fact, Okinawa is considered a Blue Zone. Blue Zones are places in the world where people live to 100 and stay healthy. However, finding your ikigai can be hard work to figure out. You may need to do a lot of soul searching to find yours. Here are a few tips on how to find your own ikigai:

• Don't confuse pleasure with purpose. Just because you enjoy doing something doesn't make it meaningful to you.  i.e. eating ice cream may give you pleasure, but isn't meaningful. Where helping out at the food bank may be hard work and heart breaking, but it makes you happy by filling you with a sense of accomplishment. Your ikigai should bring you purpose. It's something that may take a lot of hard work, but it brings you happiness despite all the hard work. 
• Make a list of at least 10 meaningful activities that you've done, are doing or would like to do.  Ikigai can be creating something, pursuing an ideal, spending time with someone or something or simply making breakfast. One way of thinking of this, is if you had a completely free Saturday morning with no pre-planned activities, what would you really like to do that would get you excited about getting up in the morning? Perhaps you can recall a past "day off" in which you were excited to do something. Here are some other questions to ask yourself to help create your list. What achievements are you most proud of? What do you enjoy talking about? What do you like to search for on the internet? What do you enjoy reading? What do you love to do or have a desire to learn more about? How do you see yourself when you describe your skills? When you travel, what types of things do you like to do? Who do you most admire and what talents or skills do they have that you wish you had? What do you believe you are really good at doing or have been told you are good at?
• Now look objectively at your list, circle the items on the list that excite you the most.  Things that you would like to invest more of your time and energy into. 
• Take the items you've circled and work them into your life so you can do them more often. Schedule them as part of your life, if they aren't already. And, see what happens in your life. You may very well find that you have discovered your life's purpose.

May you find joy and purpose in all that you do so that you always live a happy and fulfilled life. 

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