Journey To The Soul

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Purposeful Life

• Jacenda Villa

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What happens when hard work meets lighthearted joy? My recent journey to Japan revealed a fascinating cultural paradox – the remarkable ability of Japanese people to balance intense dedication with an unexpected lightness of being. Despite their reputation for discipline and high standards, I witnessed people of all ages radiating joy, openness, and a refreshing approach to life that seemed to make them more youthful than expected.

This balance stems from "ikigai," the Japanese concept meaning "a reason for being." It's your purpose—why you get up each morning—created from the overlap of your passions, strengths, vocation, and contribution to the world. This powerful concept explains how Japanese people embody seemingly contradictory traits: hardworking yet playful, devoted yet delighted, strong yet gentle. More importantly, it connects directly to Japan's status as a Blue Zone, where people commonly live healthy, active lives well into their 80s, 90s, and beyond 100—not just surviving but thriving with fewer chronic illnesses than their Western counterparts.

Your ikigai might come from spiritual beliefs, family connections, professional pursuits, creative expression, or community involvement. As we grow and change throughout life, our sense of purpose naturally evolves too. The beauty lies in its flexibility and our ability to continually realign with what truly matters. I invite you to reflect: What gives your life meaning? What excites you to start each day? What fills you with purpose? Whether you're seeking your ikigai for the first time or navigating a transition that's shifted your purpose, this exploration can transform not just how long you live, but how vibrantly you experience each moment. Listen now to discover how purpose affects health, happiness, and the energy to embrace life fully.

You can listen to the Blue Zone episode HERE

Instagram: @jacendamarie


Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's episode. I am so happy that you're here with me today, wherever you are listening from. I mentioned in my last podcast episode that I was in Japan recently and it was such a wonderful place to visit the people, the country. Everything was absolutely amazing, and something that I kept observing was how the Japanese people were so open and kind to foreigners, but also just to everyone. They had such a positive outlook and demeanor. Everyone was happy and laughing. It was kind of like they didn't take life too seriously. They were very at ease and joyful. It was something that I saw with everyone, regardless of the age they were, and it almost made them seem even more youthful expected.

Speaker 1:

Going to Japan, I had my own perception of what I thought the people would be based off of my limited knowledge and different things that I have read, and I know that Japan is a country where hard work and devotion to self are something that are deeply valued, are something that are deeply valued. They have this really deep dedication to everything that they do and it's almost high expectations for themselves, for their country, so it was interesting to see how that was very much still there, but they also have this completely other lightness to them, and it was interesting to see how these two ways of being could coexist. And it just made me think how we as humans are so multi-dimensional and we can be able to delight in our life and also be deeply devoted to it. We can be strong and soft, we can be soft-spoken and assertive, so it was really wonderful to be able to see that. But what really made me wonder was where does this light that they move through in their day-to-day actually come from? Why is it that so many of them have this way of being? They're just laughing and having fun with their life, with their day-to-day, with their work, even if it was something that didn't seem particularly exciting.

Speaker 1:

And the Japanese call this ikigai, and it roughly translates as having a reason for being. For them, it's their reason to get up in the morning, their reason to live their life, and ikigai gives us a sense of purpose and satisfaction in our life. And this is a very multifaceted thing because it encompasses so many different things in order for us individually to figure out what our ikigai is and you can look at things such as what makes you joyful, what are you passionate about, what is your vocation, what is it that you enjoy doing? How do you want to live a purposeful life and put your strengths into changing the world in some positive way? So you can almost think of this like a Venn diagram of like multiple different things that make up your ikigai.

Speaker 1:

Japan is a country that continues to be researched for their longevity and their overall life satisfaction. They've been studied for many, many years and continue to be researched because they are one of the countries that do live the longest, but they also have a high life satisfaction, and I did discuss this a little bit in a podcast sometime last year where I talked about blue zones, and I will link that below if you haven't listened to that yet. Blue zones, if you have never heard that term before, are areas in the world where people live longer and healthier lives beyond the age of 80. I also like talking as well about centenarians, which are blue zones as well, but where they also have a high population of people living over the age of 100. So these are areas in the world where people are living a lot longer than usual, but also a lot healthier and disease-free lives, unlike in America where, at 80 years old, most people have a slew of health issues. That is not the case in a lot of these blue zones. They are living their lives disease-free, at a very advanced age, and blue zones all share certain characteristics that actually support them in living these longer lives, and they've been studied in different parts of the world and they have been able to pinpoint certain things that they share in common, certain ways that they live life or approach it that allow them to live to these very advanced ages in a very healthy and able body, and some of those things are like having a sense of community, moving their body in gentle ways like walking or gardening, and eating a wholesome diet from wherever they may live in the world, seasonally eating foods that are available to them. When we look at all the blue zones, japan in particular has one of the lower rates of chronic illness than most of the world, and the centenarians that do live there live a life that is so full at such an advanced age. It's actually really amazing to see what someone over the age of 100 can do and how they can live their day-to-day. It's really inspiring.

Speaker 1:

One of the key things that blue zones have in common, outside of some of the things that I mentioned, is having a deep sense of meaning in their lives and when blue zones are studied, this can come from many different things. It can have from believing in something greater than yourself, like having a religion or a spiritual practice of some sort, but it could also not be tied to that at all. But it's living life with meaning. It is having a vigor. The backbone of that could be our spiritual life or outlook on life right, believing in God or something greater than ourselves. But that's not the only thing that could create this sense of purpose within our lives. And when we look at the word ikigai, it captures that so beautifully and if you wanted to google the word at some point in time after this episode, it's made up of two different characters and the two characters used to write out the word ikigai in Japanese essentially translate to life. That is the direct translation of the first character, and to be worthwhile is the translation of the second character. So it's life to be worthwhile.

Speaker 1:

What can our ikigai be? I mentioned a spiritual practice as our backbone, but I also mentioned that this encompasses so many different things. It can be our family, our work, what we do, our community, and all of these different things can create this deep sense of purpose in our life. So they all build upon it, and it's our excitement for our day tomorrow, for the life that we are choosing to live each day, because it's a life that honors our strengths and our passions. And what gives you a sense of purpose will evolve and change as you continue to grow through your life, because your passions will change, your values in life will change. How you feel like you can help the world will change as well.

Speaker 1:

I would love for you to take some time right now to think about what gives your life meaning. What are you excited to wake up about? What fills you every single day with a sense of purpose? What do you feel like you're working towards? These can be big things or small things, things that we're working towards little by little in our life. They can be things that are only meaningful to us, because that's ultimately the most important thing, and if you are struggling to find something, it's maybe because your life might not be fully aligned with your passions or your purpose or your strengths, and that's completely okay, because it's never too late for you to align to a life that allows you to experience all of this. The most important thing is to be aware.

Speaker 1:

I simply wanted to highlight the importance of us living a life that is deeply meaningful to us, because we can see how this affects us in so many different ways. It has a direct relation to our happiness and satisfaction in life, our overall health and longevity. It's all connected. Our vitality is something that plays out in so many different realms of our life. I have another podcast episode if you want to listen.

Speaker 1:

That touches on purpose, but the biggest thing that I want you to take away from this episode is to know how big this puzzle piece is in our life and how it really does make an impact in how we live our everyday life, in the overall life that we envision for ourselves.

Speaker 1:

It goes so far into our meaning of what is possible and how we choose to live life. If you feel like you don't have a deep sense of purpose in your life, taking some time to really create space and allow yourself to explore what that might mean for you, maybe you're in a chapter of your life where this has recently changed. Maybe you've never actually dug into it before actually dug into it before but it's so important that we take the time to do it because it will make our life so full, so vibrant, so exciting. It'll fill us up with so much energy of wanting to go and live this incredible life of purpose, of meaning, of having fun while we're here on this earth. I hope you all enjoyed this episode. I will talk to you all next week. I am sending you a big hug until then.