You may have been looking for your purpose as though it were out there somewhere, waiting to be found. Today, we discuss why it has been inside you the whole time and what changes in your life when you finally live your life from it. Welcome to the Midlife Reinvention Podcast, a podcast helping women in career and life transitions achieve clarity on their next steps so they can transform uncertainty into an energizing next chapter. I'm your host, Kavita Ahuja, and the founder of It's My Time Now Coaching. If you're wondering what's next in your career or life, you are in the right place. Through solo and guest episodes, you'll gain practical tips, tools, and inspiration to help you uncover blocks, gain confidence, and be, do, and have what you want. I rediscovered myself after the age of 50, and I know you can too. It's my time now to help you do just that. I'm so excited you're here. Let's dive in. In this episode, you'll discover three things. First, the one idea that we have been discussing this last month, which is central to everything. Your reason for being was never out there waiting to be discovered. It has been inside you all along, in four dimensions you already have within you. Second, what actually changes in the life lived from that place, in fulfillment and meaning and joy, and what the research has found about people who live this way. And third, a transformative tool I've made for you so that you can begin to see for yourself which of your four dimensions is alive right now and which one has been waiting for your attention. So stay with me to the end because this is where everything we've experienced or explored together in the last several weeks finally comes home. Hello and welcome back to the Midlife Reinvention Podcast. It's your coach Kavita. If you're new here, welcome to the Midlife Reinvention Podcast family. Something brought you to this episode, and I'm so glad you're here. And if you're a returning listener, thank you. I don't take it lightly that you're chose to spend this time with me here again today. I want to take a bit of a breath with you today because we have been on quite a journey in this series in the last few weeks. And before we step into what comes next, I want to gather it all together here and land on the one idea that has been underneath every single episode. And it is this. And when researchers went to Okinawa and asked the older people there what it was that kept them going, almost every one of them could answer without hesitating. It was tending their garden or teaching your craft to somebody younger, or caring for a grandchild. They had a reason to rise, a sense of genuinely being needed, and a role that belonged to them. I came to understand this far more deeply when I had the privilege of interviewing Francis Morales, who co-wrote the International Bestseller on Ikigai, and that conversation is in the show notes if you would like to hear it, because it really changed how I teach all of this. And here is what's really important to understand. The authentic idea was never a career strategy. It was never a diagram for choosing a profession. This idea came from a Western interpretation, which you may have seen online, depicting a Venn diagram with four circles, where one of them is what you can be paid for. That version was assembled in the West relatively recently, and I understand why it spread because it looks kind of tidy and it promises an exact answer. But I believe that is a really oversimplification, and I believe it can lead people astray also, because it teaches that your purpose is essentially a job, and that if a longing does not come with an obvious paycheck attached, it doesn't count. But as I have worked with so many women on their ikigai, it has come to evolve in my teachings where we take the paycheck circle out all together and we replace it with your values. Your Ikikai or reason for being lives where there are four dimensions which converge. And those four dimensions are your strengths, which is what you are genuinely good at, your passions, which is what you love, the things that make you lose all track of time, your values, which is what matters most to you now in this chapter, not the chapter you were living 20 years ago, and your contribution, which is the difference that is yours to make, or what you believe your world needs, which you can provide. I have put my revised Ikigai diagram in the show notes so you can see it as we talk. And if you want a full teaching episode, you can listen to episode 318, which talks through all of it. And I want to be clear about something here because people often hear this and assume I'm asking them to choose meaning instead of money. I am not. And what I have seen time and time again is that when you begin living from your reason for being, abundance does come, and it comes in every form. It comes in fulfillment and creativity and connection and energy you had forgotten you had. And yes, often money is well, sometimes more of it than before, because there is nothing more compelling than a woman doing the work she was made for. Your Ikigai doesn't ask you to trade one for the other, it is what finally lets you have both. And it reaches well past your career into how you spend a Tuesday evening, into what you make and who you love and what you can give. So that is the idea. And in this series, in the last few weeks, especially, we have been putting it to work. We sat with a woman, for example, who had reached the very top of a demanding corporate career and came to me completely burnt out, telling me her work had become nothing more than a means to an end. And what we found was that the emptiness she had felt was not a flaw in her, it was a signal, and it was telling her something quite specific. Her values had changed, and nothing in her days reflected them anymore. What she valued now was creativity and education and giving something back, and not one of those things existed anywhere in her working life anymore. And when we went looking, everything she needed was already there, and has been there since she was a girl. Nothing was invented, it was all rediscovered. We also talked about the passion you may have buried under decades of being sensible and responsible, and what it may cost you in your energy, in your body, in your years, to keep it buried. We talked about the one small step, the single hour giving back to something you love, and how that hour releases the energy for the next hour. And last week we asked honestly whether AI could do any of this for you. And what we found is that it can be genuinely useful, and I do use it every day in my business. It can gather your data points and it can show you gaps, but it can't hear what your voice does when you're not quite telling yourself the truth. And it can't catch the talent you waved away years ago because it came so easily to you, and it cannot be in the room. For the moment it all converges, and the goosebumps run down your arms. So that is where we've been, and uh today I want to answer the question underneath this whole series, which is why does this matter at all? Because I can imagine what a sensible voice inside you might be saying right now, that this is all very lovely, but it is a bit of a luxury trying to find your purpose, something for women with time and space, while you actually have a household and people you need and a job to hold down. I understand that voice because I had that same voice. But here is what I've watched happen over and over again. When a woman begins to live from her reason for being, her life doesn't just become more productive or more organized, it becomes more of hers. There is more meaning in it, there is more joy in it, and it can be the ordinary kind, the kind that shows up on a Wednesday, and she stops bracing against her own life. She has the energy she has not had in years because she's no longer spending it all holding down apart herself. And that is a change I see, and it is the real reason I do this work. And what I find rather interesting and wonderful is that the science has been pointing in the same direction all along. You would think something like purpose would be too soft a thing to measure. It turns out it's not. There is a large study that has been following thousands of Americans over the age of fifty for years now called the Health and Retirement Study, and researchers at the University of Michigan took nearly 7,000 of those people and looked at one simple question. Did the ones with a strong sense of purpose in life live longer than the ones without? And they did. Those with the strongest sense of purpose were significantly less likely to die in the years that followed. And that finding was published in 2019 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the most respected medical journals in the world. And then when they went further, taking more than thirteen thousand people from that same study and following them for eight years, the same pattern held. Only this time something rather striking came out of it. The effect was stronger in women. The women with the deepest sense of purpose had roughly a third lower risk of dying over those eight years than the women who had the least of it. A third. And it is not only about how long you live either, because in other research, a strong sense of purpose has been linked to a lower risk of stroke and to keeping your minds sharper as you age, with less cognitive decline over time. So when that sensible voice tells you that this is a luxury, I would gently disagree. What all this says to me is that living with purpose is genuinely good for you, in your body as much as in your spirit, that the very thing that makes your ordinary days feel like they matter may also be quietly looking after your health. Longer, perhaps, but more importantly, more alive for all of it. And there's one more thing that the researchers noticed in Okinawa that I want you to hold on to. Alongside their Ikigai, the Okinawans have something they called Mowa, which is a small circle of people who commit to walking through life together, supporting one another, sometimes from childhood right through to the end. And that belonging is considered every bit as important to know how long and how well they live as their sense of purpose is. Purpose and people. In the healthiest, longest lived communities on earth, those two things have never been separate. And that has really been sitting with me a great deal lately, and it's going to matter for what I want to share with you next week. Now there is something I've been thinking about throughout this whole series, and it's this. I can talk to you about your four dimensions every week, and you can nod along and find it interesting, and then end the episode and get on with your day, and nothing actually changes. And that has kind of bothered me. Because what I really want is for you to be able to look at your own life and see honestly which of this is alive for you right now, and which of this has gone quiet. So, as a result, I made something for you. It is live today, and it is called the Ikigai Clarity Assessment. It is a short set of questions that walks you through all four of your dimensions, your strengths, your passions, your values, and your contribution. And at the end it shows you where you actually stand, which one of them is thriving in your life right now, and which one has been waiting for your attention, perhaps for a very long time. Think of it as the first real step. It gives you a clear and honest picture of your starting place, and that matters more than you might think. Because you cannot begin a journey without knowing where you're standing. Most women have never had that picture of themselves. They have a vague sense that something is off, but they could not tell you which part of them has gone quiet. This assessment tells you. And then, when you have your results, I would love to look at them with you because the picture is one thing, and understanding what it actually means for your life is another. And that's exactly what I'm here for. Bring your results to a clarity and next chapter call with me, and we'll go through them together properly. What was your strongest dimension telling you? What has a quiet one also been waiting for? And what is your first next step that might be there for you to take? That is a conversation where this stops being interesting and starts being yours. So let me leave you with the three things I want you to most carry out of this episode. First, that your reason for being was never out there waiting to be found because it has been inside you all along. In the four dimensions you already have your strengths, your passions, your values, and your contribution. And your work is a rediscovery rather than invention. Second, that living from that place changes how your life actually feels, with more meaning and more joy, and more energy in your ordinary days. And the research now suggests it may be quietly good for your health as well. With the effect strongest in women. And third, that you don't have to guess where you're starting from, because the EK Guide Clarity Assessment will show you honestly which of your four dimensions is alive right now and which one has been waiting. So here is the now, and it is two simple things. Take the assessment today while all of this is still fresh for you, and let it show you your starting place. And then book a clarity and next chapter call with me and bring your results, and we will make sense of them together. Both links are waiting for you at the top of the show notes, along with my revised Ikigai diagram. And then come back next week, my friend, because something rather significant is happening in my own life. I'm turning 60, and I'm going to be coming on this podcast and doing something I've never done before, which is to walk you through my own four dimensions of my Ikigai out loud, and show you how even now, at 60, my own reason for being is still evolving. I will tell you what has been shifting in my own contribution lately, and why those Okinawan circles of people have been so much on my mind. It rather surprised me. I think it may surprise you too. I thank you so much for being here, and remember, you get to decide what comes next. So say it with me, and say it with confidence. It's my time now.