Have you taken the time to define your goals?
Although it's good to have big ambitions, Ken Mogi explains the importance of starting with small goals.
You can start very small
Ken: The final pillar of ikigai is starting small. This is a very famous sushi restaurant in the heart of Tokyo. I’ve been there only a few times, and it’s not really easy to make a reservation at the Sukiyabashi Jiro.
Famously President Obama, when he visited to Tokyo, he went there and had a really wonderful dinner. So you’d be lucky if you can get a reservation at Sukiyabashi Jiro. Anyway, Jiro Ono, I think, he’s 97, maybe now, and the world’s oldest Michelin three stars chef.
This is Jiro Ono as a child. You would think that since his sushi restaurant is such a wonderful place, he would had aspired to do that from childhood. But actually, that’s not the case. Jiro Ono became a sushi chef not because he aspired to be a Michelin three stars chef welcoming the President of the United States, but simply because a sushi restaurant was the cheapest to open.
He had a humble childhood and he couldn’t really earn a lot of money to start with. But you can start very small. I mean, you can start from a very small sushi restaurant and gradually build from that.
So you actually might have some really big dreams, but it’s always a great idea to start small rather than aim at big things from the beginning. So these have been the five pillars of ikigai.