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4 Areas of Your Ikigai

Believe it or not, we all have an ikigai, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. It hits us at different levels, for some it is something we look forward to, and helps us get through the day. But for others, when they understand the purpose of having ikigai, it is a motivating force that drives you to accomplish whatever goals you have set out to do, because it is the essence of your being. You HAVE TO do what you do, it is your reason for being. 
 
In Okinawa, when they surveyed the centarians if they knew what their ikigai was, they immediately told them what it was. Some said, “fishing to feed my family”, another said, “carrying forth my martial art”. It has a little more to it than something they just want to do. 
 
Ikigai has its reaches into our life’s purpose in 4 areas:
What we love to do
What we are good at doing
What we can be paid for doing
What the world needs from what we are doing. 
 
In simpler terms, it fulfills our passion, profession, mission, and vocation. When we are doing things that we are good at and love to doing, plus we get paid for it while making a difference in someone’s life, that is life to the fullest! 
 
There is no limit to ikigai, your reason can be more than one, but most likely they will be able to function together as one. 
 
This weekend, think about what you love doing and how it ranks in the four areas. If you take all your skills and rank them 1-10 in the four areas, you may discover that you most enjoy something you just do every now and then, maybe you should do that more often! It could be your reason for being!

Hansei Applications

Han - To turn over and examine
Sei - To look back upon in review of the past
Hansei - Self-reflection
 
Remember the two sides to hansei?
1: Review what’s not working or what could be better.
2: make the commitment to improve on your findings. 
 
Today, I wanted to go over some things to look out for if you will take doing a hansei seriously…
 
Find where you fit into the equation: No one likes having problems, especially if they are the cause of their own. First thing in our survival mode of our ego is to find blame. If you want to make things better, find out how you are involved in the breakdown of things. It may not be your fault, but you may have created an environment that increased the chances of failure.
 
Understand the purpose of hansei. It is a way to better yourself. It is NOT meant for you to find things to hate yourself over and look for pity. You are to identify things to improve, not focus and dwell in defeat.
Be ready to accept your mistakes. You did it, yes, but you are here to fix it, NOT to relive the past. We are using this as a lesson and motivator to move forward.
Remain open and committed to the solutions you come up with. Be ready to put in work to be successful 
Try not to make the same mistakes again. You’ve learned. You see signs. You have your statements. You Got This.
 

5 Step Hansei During Your Tea Time

Here are some steps to add Hansel in your tea time. 
Step 1.  Already know what you want to reflect on. Instead of being random, like, “what was good today?”, come to your tea time with the focus of what you want to think about. 
 
Step 2. Review. Think on things like:
What was my intent in doing this?
What actions did I take to get the result I wanted?
What was the expected outcome?
What was the actual outcome?
What was the difference?
 
Step 3. Come up with focus sentence that addresses the review you had. Write down the sentence and keep it nearby to help guide you or keep you on track in what you want to accomplish. 
 
Step 4. Keep a journal of your journey. You don’t have to go into deep details of everything, just a quick entry of what your hansei was about, and what your focus sentence was. You may notice repeating patterns or habits you have that needs prayer and to be broken. 
 
Step 5. Make a commitment to the solutions you come up with.
 
Only focusing on strength is a sign of weakness, because pride comes before a fall. When you know your weaknesses and you are able to tackle them head on, you become unbelievably stronger than ever before!

Hansei: Self Reflecting

Earlier we talked about Lingchi - Death by a thousand cuts, which is a slow death overcoming you from all of the uncontrollable desires we are opening the doors for, which becomes the flood of the seven deadly sins to come overtake us. Today, we are closing the doors and keeping them closed, by knowing when those doors start to creep open.
 
Han - Look upon and turn over
Sei - Look back and review the past
Hansei - Self Reflection:
Be aware of short-comings and flaws
Know what tempts you
Take responsibility for safe guarding against falling
Avoid blaming everyone else 
Learn from past mistakes
 
History often repeats itself. Mainly because the lesson life was teaching was not learned. Reflections on past mistakes will ultimately see you through if things start down the same road as before. You cannot be trapped in the past, reliving the mistakes, you must visit to see what and what not to do for future references.
 
There are two parts to Hansei:
First, there needs to be reflection on things gone wrong. How did the door open? What started the desire and what fed it until it was uncontrollable?
 
Second, there has to be an action plan to stop it from happening again.
How can I fix this? Who can help me if it starts again? Where can I go for help?
 
Set aside some time to seriously start to reflect and search for opening doors. Remember Kaizen, take it a little bit at a time for long lasting improvements.

Lingchi- Overwhelmed Little By Little

The straight forward frustrations of everyday life usually will not bring us down, we are resilient! We overcome so many day to day challenges, it’s not even funny. But the slowly creeping attacks on our happiness that happens on all fronts, this is where we start to get that sinking, I’m losing everything, feeling. Missing a bill you forgot to pay will hurt a little. But getting the late fee, then your stocks tank, and now having to put the car in the shop, AC breaking down at the house, subscription renewal fees, and having to pay a traffic ticket may have you feeling like it’s impossible to get ahead.
 
This is a metaphorical Lingchi, “Death by a thousand cuts”. When we look at being overwhelmed with frustrations, when we are in the middle of it, it will seem as though the world is totally against you. It may well be. But here is something I would like for you to consider, have we set ourselves up for this? Have we left open doors for adversity to come in and wreck what we are trying to accomplish? 
 
The doors we leave open are usually in these areas:
Lust, which uncontrollable desire
Gluttony, over indulgence or over consumption of something
Greed, the never-satisfied pursuit of material things
Sloth, laziness and apathy towards things
Wrath, uncontrolled anger, where you only think of revenge and rage
Envy, jealousy and resentment over things others have or are doing
Pride, arrogance and misplaced self-confidence coming from the admiration of self
 
We all have a little bit of each of these going on in our minds most of the time, but when it becomes uncontrollable and we act on these desires, this is when we start our fall down into situations we don’t want to be in. These are doors opening us up to experience “death by a thousand cuts”.

Balance in life goals

So I just realized that all of us are working on our goals everyday, and the effectiveness of the goals we set for ourselves depends on how big we scale them. This is what I mean, some of our goals may be to get breakfast, and not think beyond that. Others may be working on their 10 year plan everyday and day to day tasks do not really mean much to them. 
 
Because we are all different, with differing opinions, thoughts, and personalities, every person sets their own pace towards the things they want to accomplish thief life. 
 
I’m learning there has to be balance. Ikigai (your reasons for living) to set standards, and kaizen (continuous small improvements) to be able to accomplish them. We often lack in motivation to live a full life because we either set things too low and crush them quickly and are bored and not fulfilled, or way too high where it seems like the goal is never reached, or obtainable and we steadily lose interest in trying to accomplish it. 
 
Two things go on in our minds as we are living life. What we want to do, and what we enjoy doing. Unfortunately, these functions happen in two different sections of our consciousness. When they agree, we do great things! When they don’t agree, we procrastinate, get bored, or do things begrudgingly. We are going to get our minds on one accord and do big things!
 
The next few episodes will be on getting balance through lingchi, hansai, ikigai, and kaizen. 

Fureai Kippu and Your Emotional Bank Accounts

In reading this morning, I came across this concept introduced in certain communities in Japan in the late 90s. 
Fureai - translates to “close mutuality”, and it is like the bond between mentor and mentee, nurses and their patients, or like teachers and their students. A friendship, but more a respect/serving type of bond.  
Kippu simply means ticket. 
 
So they introduced a social currency that could be traded or exchanged from earning tickets through community services. To me, that could boost community involvement, seems to be a good idea, but I know that that is in a different culture. 
 
So I wanted to you to think about your relationships today. We may not have social currencies, but we do have emotional bank accounts that we deposit and withdraw from every time we get together with anyone. Make sure you are making more deposits than withdrawals. If you make more withdrawals than you have in the account, then your relationship will become overdrawn and things will start to get rocky every time you speak. People become cold and bitter and argue and fight often, because no more deposits are being made. Then soon bankruptcy. No more relations at all. 
 
Let’s focus on making deposits today in all of our relationships, spiritual, mental, and physical. 

Look over your blessings

Look over your blessings because it is really easy to overlook them and forget how far you’ve come. Because we are always looking forward (greedily or being hopeful) it gets hard to sit down and reflect on what got you into the present situation. Not only that, but taking time to appreciate what you have, and what you have done. 
 
Wabi Sabi sees the perfection in imperfections, but it also appreciates the beauty of what you’ve already acquired, and repurposes it if need be to keep it fresh and new, even when it has become old and worn out. 
 
So should be with the wonderful things God has done for us, we keep them, appreciate them, and see the beauty and usefulness in them to live a full life. 
 
Recall and reconsider some great victories you’ve made and reflect on them to see if you can still use the lessons learned from those experiences.