Do you like Japan? Oh I love it! The culture of Japan sounds pretty awesome! Their food, their dresses, their anime, their traditions, their lifestyle… It fascinates me.

Okay so, this post is not about Japan. You might be wondering what long term happiness has to do with Japan?!

Oh well, there’s a reason I talked about Japan because the concept that I’m going to introduce to you, originally comes from Japan.

So what does it mean to be happy?

How can you achieve long term happiness?

Japanese people have this really interesting concept that I’m going to share with you all today, which many people have found to bring long term happiness in their lives.

It’s called ‘Ikigai’

What is Ikigai?

So Ikigai literally means a “reason for being”. The word Ikigai has been derived from ‘iki’ meaning life and ‘kai’ meaning realisation of hopes and expectations.

Its something you can do every single day which can make you happy in the long term.

“Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.”

– Victor Frankl

Many people think not having to do anything will make them happy. Seriously?!

You can spend a week without doing anything. But what next? You gotta do something in your life! You can to do something you like, something you’re good at and something that brings happiness and meaning in your life.

Now speaking of work, let me be clear. Don’t think that “If you love what you do, you won’t have to work a single day in your life”. I haven’t found that to be true.

I mean doing what you love is definitely interesting and cool but it still feels like work. You get tired and exhausted but you have to keep going.

But if you choose your work, based on the following guidelines, you will be happy with your work and achieve long term happiness and satisfaction in your life.

Now, tell me –

1. What is the activity that you love doing? Something you really like to do and can spend hours doing that.

Because if you want to be happy, you need to do something you like. Or you might not want to pursue it long term.

2. What is something you’re good at? I mean what’s your strength? What is something that you can do much better than others?

Oh you cannot do something you’re not good at and be happy! haha… I mean you need to have the necessary skills to keep going. Or you might get bored soon or even depressed.

3. What is something that you can get paid for? I mean how can you earn money by doing what you like?

Money matters! You need to get paid well to enjoy your life. Yeah, I know money can’t buy happiness. But if money is spent to get some kind of experience, it can make you happy! Because memories last longer than material things and you can cherish them and be happy.

4. Is what you like to do beneficial to the world in some way? How can you help others by what you do and bring a positive change in their lives? Or how can you ease their lives by solving a problem and make a difference?

You are happy when you help others. Many studies have proven this. When someone tells you you’ve made a positive impact in their life or helped them in some manner, how does that feel? You feel extremely happy right? You are also satisfied with your life and your work when you’re constantly seeing the positive impact you’re making.

There are four combinations that come from these 4 criterion.

If you do something you love and something you’re good at –

That’s your passion.

But having a passion is not enough.

You gotta find ways you can get paid for it and figure out how it can be helpful or beneficial to others.

If you do something you’re good at and something you can get paid for –

That’s your profession.

Many people have their profession, but according to Ikigai, to be more happy you need to figure out whether you really love what you’re doing and how can you change the world for the better by doing so.

If you something that you get paid for and you believe it makes the world a better place –

That’s a Vocation.

But that’s not enough either. You need to figure out how can you get better at this or how can you improve your service and whether or not you like the job you do.

If you do something the world needs and something you love –

That’s your Mission.

Now it’s great to have a mission! But you also need to figure out how can you get paid well for your services and how can you improve your work, how can you get better and better at what you do.

And if –

You have the all four…

Congratulations!

You are going to be happy and satisfied with your work in the long run.

So, keep doing what you’re doing!

I also want you to remember that this is not the only criteria to be happy.

Doing this may not be actually possible for some people and I totally get it! It’s okay. Life has many more chances to be happy.

But if you’re struggling with your job, work, profession, career, this can definitely help. This is something you can strive to achieve.

To be honest with you guys I have a Mission right now. I need to figure out a way to earn from it and how to get better at what I do.

Hopefully I’ll be able to achieve the balance soon.

What about you guys, what do you have? What do you need to work on?

Did you find this interesting and helpful?