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How to establish good habits and stop bad habits with the help of Ikigai
Ikigai is a Japanese concept that helps you find your purpose and meaning in life. In the Western world, it is mainly used to align personal passions and skills in order to earn money.
However, it is worth taking a closer look at this concept as it can provide a guiding framework for a more satisfying, happy, and fulfilling life.
Ikigai creates the perfect symbiosis of Western and Eastern world views.
In the Western world, the focus is often on the individual and the ego; in other words, it is self-centered. The slogan is from rags to riches; you can achieve anything with the right mindset!
In Eastern philosophy, it is the exact opposite. It is all about the individual subordinating their needs and impulses to the collective as the superior entity.
Ikigai or East meets West! The best of both worlds
At first glance, it looks as if two completely different worldviews are competing.
Upon closer examination, however, these represent two opposing ends that require finding a balance or determining a priority. Ikigai harmoniously synchronizes these poles and finds an intersection between them. It widens the perspective on the totality of life and considers all relevant aspects.
From this perspective, it therefore provides an orientation framework for each individual. It allows one to express one’s free will in a way that finds an ideal intersection between the individual’s needs and the environment’s inclinations. This environment includes the social and natural conditions of the place where one lives.
If you focus on this intersection, your everyday life becomes much easier, and you will be in a flow state. In everything you do, you encounter significantly less resistance, require less effort, and things generally run more smoothly. This leads to increased satisfaction and balance. Daily tasks are easily accomplished.
This means you are satisfied, fulfilled, and your daily work becomes easier. Those who are in tune with their personal Ikigai live in true and holistic prosperity, which includes sufficient material resources, emotional fulfillment, and good health.
This not only serves the individual perfectly but also provides the collective with the maximum creativity and performance of each individual so that it can develop in the best possible way.
Using Ikigai to Establish Good Habits (and break bad ones)
Ikigai is the ideal intersection of what we are good at, what fulfills us, and what our environment needs and values.
Ikigai is usually only described as a concept that allows you to turn your passion into a profession. However, it can also be applied in many other areas of life and serve as a holistic orientation framework for a fulfilled life.
When you want to change or achieve something, you inevitably challenge or change old habits, and new ones are established. Once you are in tune with your Ikigai, it is much easier to develop new habits in your life and at the same time stop bad habits.
This is mainly because the success of lasting habit change depends largely on one factor: our personal motivation.
We can decide to do whatever we want. If our “why”, i.e. the inner drive to actually implement this plan permanently, is not strong enough, we will fail sooner or later.
Those who live in harmony with their Ikigai automatically experience a boost in motivation
And this is where Ikigai enters the stage. By arranging our lives according to the orientation framework of Ikigai, we automatically get this motivational boost to change the habits we have built up over the years.
This is because Ikigai expands our perspective. We no longer see ourselves in isolation but take a more holistic view of life. This means that we no longer consider only our personal needs, skills, and goals in our plans but also our surroundings and environment.
Therefore, it is a question of modifying our environment so that we can achieve our goals more easily. This includes, for example, informing and, ideally, involving the people who are impacted by our project. This minimizes any possible resistance or confusion and can even provide additional ideas and support. When we are in harmony with our surroundings implementation becomes much easier.
If this is not possible or wanted, tailoring our goal to the relevant circumstances can also be helpful.
We can, therefore, live more in the flow by paying attention to the conditions and opportunities around us and taking them into account. After all, any change in our habits automatically affects our environment and vice versa.
Establishing new habits with Ikigai – A simple example
We could decide to eat healthier from now on. However, if we don’t take our surroundings into account or modify them, we are very likely to return to our old eating habits after a short time.
According to the idea of Ikigai, we could design our home to make it easy to prepare healthy meals. We could fill the fridge with fresh vegetables and fruit and remove unhealthy snacks. We could also look for restaurants or cafés in our area that offer healthy options so we can maintain our new eating habits on the go.
Additionally. we could also involve our partner and the rest of the family in our plans and perhaps convince them to participate. Together, it is much easier.
If you want to learn how to apply Ikigai, you will find six ready-to-use Coaching exercises and worksheets here. Additional tools and exercises for breaking bad habits and establishing new ones are available here.
