Category: Life Work Flourishing Coaching Blog

As a grandfather gazes into the eyes of his infant granddaughter spellbound, he may ponder, “What moonshot will she aspire to?  Will she go to Mars?”  As his  grandchild stares into the eyes of her adoring grandfather mesmerized,  she may wonder, “Who is this? What’s he all about?”  They are both transfixed, full of awe and curiosity, looking through their own lens, into the lens of the other, that then transforms into a prism of boundless possibilities.
 
When you look through a triangular prism you see white light being dispersed into a rainbow of brilliant colors.  The same principle of physics can be applied to life and work too.  When you look at a situation through the prism of positivity you see a rainbow of vivid possibilities.  

To make your way closer to your Ikigai, sometimes you have to change your orientation towards your North Star.  To act on this desire to shift direction, you also have to declare your intention: both to yourself and to those around you.  When you utter it out loud, your frontal lobe of the brain (cortex) gets the message that you have created an intention, and the reward center lights up. The reward is not only possible, it is now probable.  The motivation circuitry is awakened and a positive feedback loop is generated.  “A positive feedback loop in a natural system amplifies the effects of a minor change, which become self-reinforcing and the system responds.” 

A client recently started her coaching engagement with a declaration that her big vision, her North Star had shifted. Life circumstances had prompted this. Instead of climbing the corporate ladder as she had done for years, she now wanted to focus on global climate change issues and being present for her family, as a young parent. Following her purpose in life and personal fulfillment were her new areas of passion. This was not going to be an easy passage as the former was all she had known her adult life.  It had brought her immense joy and meaning thus far.  No more.  It wasn’t as fulfilling anymore.

As you head out into the New Year on the journey of cultivating your Ikigai, you may want to pay attention to what travel aids you would like to pack with you to make this a promising, yet pragmatic, and proficient passage.  
 
Start by identifying when you are the happiest.  What are those times when you are so absorbed in life that everything else fades into the background becoming inconsequential?  This is not a fleeting, momentary pleasure but a state of sustained happiness. To be completely immersed in that moment is to be in Flow.   

As you sit back and review the year that has passed, I wonder how many of you are reflecting on what was meaningful and fulfilling for you.  With all the traditional gift exchanges, consider giving yourself the gift of Ikigai.  ‘Ikigai’ originates in Japan representing Iki (life) and Gai (worth).  A life worth living. 

I feel compelled to repost this article I had written back in December 2016.  Of late I have noticed a surge of  the ‘Be Good’ Mindset in my coaching sessions.  So once again I am bringing to the forefront this very important distinction. 

Most of us walk around with what is known as the ‘Be Good’ mindset.  We believe we have to be good at something: an activity, job, career or profession. We also yearn to be good as somebody: spouse, parent, relative, employee, or leader.  It does not matter what life area or life role we look at, we tell ourselves we have to be good at it. 

Dr. Neal Mayerson, Founder & Chairman of the VIA Institute on Character, talks about the towing of character strengths.  The towing principle refers to using an already well established strength to boost another less developed strength by towing it along like a tugboat. The VIA Institute refers to this phenomenon in which the expression of one strength naturally elicits the expression of other strengths as “the towing principle” or “virtuous circle.”

Our highest strengths tend to span the top five of the 24 VIA character strengths, and are aptly called Signature Strengths. Life circumstances may cause them to move up or down in rank, but for the most part they represent who we are at our very core.  They energize us, are easy to engage, and essential to our identity.  They do not exact effort or forethought, as they are second nature to us.  It is to our benefit to apply these regularly and keep polishing them.  Not only do they enhance our personal wellbeing, they also impact our social and work relationships, and extend our influence to the community.