My father-in-law is a shokunin, a craftsman. He makes a style of traditional Japanese pottery called Shino-yaki. In Japan, the shokunin’s attitude and commitment to craft are embodied in the term shokunin-damashi; damashi means ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’, so this indicates ‘the craftsman’s spirit’ – a willingness to go above and beyond one’s commitment to their […]

How well you can focus and concentrate on a single task throughout your life will greatly influence the success you experience. You can repeatedly choose avoidance and distraction and, as a result, never become proficient at anything, or you can train yourself to focus, enter states of flow, and live a life with the power

When do you feel in flow?Flow is often experienced while playing sports, music, or games, or in partaking in religious rituals. It is generally accepted as an optimal state of mind that is achieved when an individual is intensely involved in one of these activities. What is often forgotten is that flow involves a balance

Discussions of self-improvement in Japan often involve the verb gambaru. Its noun form gambari could be translated to mean ‘endurance’, ‘perseverance’, ‘effort’, or ‘tenacity’. Gambari indicates ‘exerting effort and hard work’ or ‘persevering and not giving up’. It is a key cultural value that guides Japanese motivation and the attitudes towards life’s challenges. I use the

In episode 20 of the Ikigai Podcast, Dr Iza Kavedžija, Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and author of the book Making Meaningful Lives: Tales from an Ageing Japan, recounted her experience of volunteering for an NGO at a community café in the south of Osaka.As part of her doctoral research

What is a sense of purpose? When do you feel a sense of purpose? The Japanese word shimei-kan provides us with some answers.If we take a closer look at the kanji characters that form the word shimei-kan, 使命感,  使 (shi) is used for the verb 使う(tsukau), meaning ‘to use’, and 命 (mei) means ‘life’. Thus,