#317: How to Find Your Purpose in Midlife When You Think You Have None.

Have you ever listened to someone describe their purpose or reason for being and quietly wondered if you will ever find your own?

If you are in the middle of a midlife career or life transition, that question can feel heavier than it should. The good news is that your ikigai is not something you have to invent. It is already living inside you, in what you are good at, in what you love, in what you value now, and in where the world quietly needs you. Your only work is to begin noticing what is already there.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why your ikigai is uncovered, not invented, and what that changes about how you approach your midlife career transition
• The four circles to sketch this week and the simple practice that begins to reveal your purpose
• The one energy signal to trust above almost any other as you start finding your reason for being

Press play to begin the practice that turns the page from someone else's story to your own discovery.

If this resonates and you want a clearer picture of what is holding your purpose just out of reach, take the Career & Life Fulfillment Quiz to see where you stand right now and what your next step looks like.

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This podcast explores career and life transitions, helping women find clarity, confidence, and purpose through Ikigai and self-discovery. We cover navigating change, overcoming self-doubt and limiting beliefs, finding your purpose-driven career, and building the courage to start your next chapter - whether you're facing a career transition, life transition, or midlife reinvention.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's easy to hear someone else's reason for being and quietly wonder if you will ever find your own. Today, I'm going to show you how to begin finding yours this week. Welcome back to the Midlife Reinvention Podcast. It's your coach Kavita with your Thursday check-in. On Monday in episode 316, I closed out my story with a finale. I shared how I found my own Ikigai, my reason for being, the place where my strengths, my passions, my values, and my contribution all came together. And I made you a promise at the end of it. I told you that the four circles I found were not mine alone, that they were already inside of you. So today we turn the page. We are done with my story. This is where yours begins. Here's the thing I most want you to understand as you start. You're not going to invent your Igigai. You could not if you tried. And that is the best news I can give you. You're going to uncover it because every one of those four circles is already living inside of you. In what you're good at, in what you love, in what you value now, and in the place where the world quietly needs you. Nothing has to be created from scratch, nothing has to be borrowed from someone else's life. Your only work is to notice what is already there, and then to look for where those circles overlap. Because that is where your reason for being lives. In the center, where all four meet. Now, women come to me all the time and say, Kabita, I have no idea what my ikie guy is. I don't feel like I have a reason for being. And I gently tell them the same thing that I'm telling you. You don't have to feel it yet. You only have to begin looking because the answers were always already inside of you. You have been too busy or too afraid or too convinced it was selfish to stop and notice. And here is what I've seen again and again. The woman who is most certain she is nothing is usually the one sitting on the richest material of all. She has simply stopped looking at her own life as a place worth searching. And when she finally does, something settles. The overwhelm quiets. She stops straining to become someone new, and she starts remembering who she has been all along. There is one signal I want you to trust above almost any other as you begin, and it is the same one that has guided me. Pay attention to the moments when time disappears. When you're so immersed in something you are good at and that you love, that you look up and hours have passed and you feel more alive than when you started. That feeling has a name and it is called anabolic energy, which is the energy of expansion, and it is your own life quietly illuminating the way. It is showing you where your strengths and your passions are already overlapping, often in plain sight, in the very things you didn't think counted. So here is your practice for this week, and I want you to actually do this one, my friend, with a pen and paper, not in your hand. Draw four circles overlapping, and give each one a name. The first is your strengths or what you are good at. The second is your passions or what you love. The third is your values or what matters most to you right now in this chapter, because well they may have shifted, and that matters. And the fourth is your contribution, where you think the world needs you. Then, under each circle, write down whatever comes up, without judging it, without editing it, even the things that feel too small or too obvious to count. Let it be messy. And when you're done, look at where those four circles may overlap. Look at the words. Where does something you love also happen to be something you're good at? Where does what you value meet what the world quietly needs? Those overlaps are where the magic is, and they begin to illuminate your reason for being. And notice which one of them makes you lose track of time when you imagine doing more of it, because that, more than any answer in your head, is your energy telling you that you are very close. You won't finish this one in one sitting, and you're not meant to. This is a beginning of a conversation with yourself, one we're going to keep having together. Because this is where the podcast turns. In the weeks ahead, I'm going to walk you circle by circle, deeper into your own Ikigai, the same way I walked you through mine. We're moving from my story to your discovery, and I can't wait. And as you sketch those four circles this week, you may feel how much you long to actually see where they meet. And that is the work I do, and it is the very thing I would love to do with you. You can book a clarity and next chapter call with me, and together we will look at your four circles so you can see which one you could have been ignoring, what you could have been missing, the piece that keeps the whole picture from coming together, whether or not we ever work beyond this call. It's a really beautiful place to begin. The link to book the call is in the show notes, and I'm waiting for you there. And remember, my friend, you get to decide what comes next. So say it with me, and say it with confidence it's my time now.