Are you constantly learning? If you'd like to feel more ikigai in your life, one of the best ways to achieve it is by continuously learning and pursuing change and growth. Having new experiences where you learn and grow can lead to a feeling of fulfillment -- the satisfaction that you get from discovering something new.
Grab a copy of IKIGAI-KAN: Feel a Life Worth Living. Visit https://ikigaikan.com/ for more details.
When you learn you change, and when you change, you grow
What makes life feel worth living? This is something I explore in my book, IKIGAI-KAN: Feel a Life Worth Living. In the book, I explore the work of Mieko Kamiya, she was Japan’s research pioneer on the concept of ikigai.
She found that there are seven ikigai needs that we need to satisfy in order to feel ikigai. One of these ikigai needs is change and growth. I’ll quote from the book:
“Kamiya wrote that a sense of fulfilment is closely linked to the desire for change. As humans, we have a desire for new experiences. Boredom can indicate poor mental health state, where one feels their lives have become stale. As a result, the need for change becomes desirable. Kamiya argued that we want to avoid stagnation and boredom, and instead grow, which can only be achieved when we embrace change.”
So we need to embrace change in order to grow, and this is linked to a sense of fulfilment or sense of life satisfaction. And a sense of fulfilment is the most fundamental need that Kamiya wrote about, and then linked to that is this idea of change and growth.
So if we want to feel ikigai, we need to do things that will help us grow, and one thing we can do is to constantly learn. And this is something I’ve been doing all my life in relation to the Japanese language.
I’m back reading Japanese and learning new kanji, and it is certainly challenging, yet very fulfilling. And as I learn new words, I do feel the sense of growth, and I feel my mind opening up to a new world, everytime I learn a new word.
And the joy of learning also results in the joy of sharing or teaching what I learn. And that also leads to the sense of change and growth. So one thing you can do to feel ikigai, ikigai-kan, is to learn something, and then share with others.
Because when you learn, you change, and when you change, you grow. And you can also have the joy of sharing what you’ve learned to others. So a few questions we can ask ourselves is what do I want to learn and what do I want to share with others?
You can do this both professionally or personally. So embrace change, learn something, and share it with others. If you would like to learn more about the seven ikigai needs, grab a copy of my book IKIGAI-KAN: Feel a Life Worth Living.