Feeling Lost in Life? Discover How Ikigai Can Help You Find Your Purpose

Have you ever felt like you were floating around all the time and just surviving this life instead of living?

That’s is how one person put it recently, and another expressed it this way:  

“I am really tired of life. Every day go home, I have to fake that I am happy at work, but really I am tired; every day I eat, work, sleep, and repeat.”

There are many reasons why you may feel lost, just drifting through life hoping to get to the end of the day. Thinking of a rosy future is too far away on the horizon for you to think about. 

Here are some of the reasons you may have a feeling of being lost:

• Job: Sometimes we are caught through circumstances in a job we are not happy to be in, causing us stress and anxiety, with no apparent way out.
• Relationships: Being in a relationship that doesn’t give you happiness and a peaceful existence can create a feeling of hopelessness. 
• Health: Dealing with ill health can be debilitating, not allowing us the freedom to move forward closer to our dreams. Feeling stuck in our NOW.
• Financial: Financial hardship can happen to any one of us due to circumstances that seem to come from nowhere, building a mountain of debt that seems to high to climb or control. Creating stress and anxiety about our future.  
• Family: Being caught in the family circle of blame and family members not taking responsibility for their actions can be a cause for emotional pain and discomfort.   

So how do we stop these feelings of being lost, anxious, stressed, and unhappy?

This is a good question, and you will find many different answers.

Having a clear idea of where we are bound for is one of the first steps.

For me, I have recently gone through a health scare that left me living in limbo land for nearly 2 years. Not knowing if I was going to live or die.

Fortunately, through this experience I found my Ikigai; I had a purpose, and within that I had a plan for living or dying. 

I now know I am going to live, not die.

First, you need to move out of your comfort zone and challenge your current life.

This takes motivation. 

My motivation was that I didn’t want to die, and if I was going to die, I wanted to die happily.   

So using modern Ikigai I found my purpose to keep living and serve the community.

You can too. 

How to Find Your Modern Ikigai

Modern Ikigai is designed to help us on our journey to find our purpose.

Finding our true purpose gives us something to aim for in the future; it allows us to see our future selves.

Living a purposed filled life. Our Ikigai.

The modern Ikigai concept is deeply rooted in Japanese culture, and the meaning comes from the combination of two words “Iki” and “Gai”

Finding your Ikigai is a process of combining four circles designed around a Venn diagram created by Marc Winn. 

These four circles are:

what we love to do (passion), 

what we are good at (vocation), 

what the world needs (mission)

and what we can be paid for (profession).

Using our Ikigai Kit, you can find your own modern Ikigai, a purpose filled life. 

The Next Steps

To go from feeling lost in life to a purpose filled life we need to set up small steps.

You could consider using SMART goals as a process to set your goals, even as small steps.

Steps that are designed to lead us to our final destination. Ikigai: Purposed Filled Life

Steve Hudson 

• Certified Ikigai Coach – Passionate about guiding people to their purpose
• Author of Ikigai: Purpose Filled Life ikigaipurposefilledlife.com
• Founder of Modern Ikigai, inspiring modern living through Ikigai