How To Spend Your Days.

A Japanese framework for finding meaningful work.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Annie Dillard.

When thinking about how long your life will be and at what quality, you have to think about how you will spend your days.

I refer to this as Soul Span.

Work will make up a big part of those days.

Figures vary, but on average, most people will spend between 70,000 and 90,000 hours of their lives at work.

Considering that you will also probably spend about one-third of it asleep, the amount of time you spend at work will make up a considerable chunk of your waking life.

And yet, over 65% of adults do not feel engaged with their work¹.

Only about 16% would describe themselves as ‘Actively Engaged’.

Not only are most people not engaged with their work, but almost half feel burned out by their work.

For something that will consume so much of our lives, this is a disaster.

For me, this is not about productivity, employee retention or employee satisfaction.

This is about how we spend our days.

Our preciously few days.

And this is how we feel?

As Charles Bukowski famously said:

“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so? ”

(I think it’s quaint he thought an 8:30 am alarm clock was early)

So what should you do?

For me, this is a question about what you are going to do in life.

We should do something we love.

But I like walking in Alpine forests.

If anyone wants to pay me large sums of money to do that, I will gladly accept the offer.

I suspect I will be left waiting.

But is there a framework we can use to help us decide what we can do in life?

A framework that is based on something we love but also adds value to the world so that we are rewarded for doing it.

The Japanese have a word for such an activity.

Ikigai.

Which literally translates to ‘living with meaning’.

Understanding the Ikigai framework is a useful starting point when deciding how to spend your life.

It will not give you a perfect answer, but it will help point you in the right direction.

In fact, if you ask a Japanese person, they will tell you that Ikigai often relates to much smaller goals, such as what to do on any given day, like ‘My Ikigai is to eat ice cream’, but using it for larger goals is helpful too.

You must consider four important factors when considering how you will spend your life.

1. What you love.

2. What you are good at.

3. What the world needs.

4. What you can be paid for.

   

The problem is that these four factors may only partially overlap or not at all.

Remember, I love to walk in Alpine forests, but no one will pay me for it, and although I enjoy it, the world doesn’t really ‘need’ it.

But what happens when you get some of these factors to overlap but not all of them?

Passion

When you combine something you love with something you are good at, you end up with a passion.

I am pretty good at hiking and trail running and love to spend time moving in forests, so you could call that a passion.

Several things are likely to land at this intersection, but for many people, they also represent things that the world does not need or is probably unwilling to pay for.

Of course, there will always be exceptions to this rule, but the goal is not to get too pedantic about this framework but to use it as a guide.

Mission

You could pair what you love with what the world needs.

Then, you would have a mission.

Think about addressing a major problem the world faces: tackling poverty, educating a million underserved people or extending healthcare needs to those in greatest need.

The domain of mission tends to be filled with purpose and passion but is often poorly rewarded.

And while you might be passionate about it, you might not be very good at it.

I once knew a highly specialised surgeon who wanted to be a barista. However, she could not pour a coffee to save her life.

She was an amazing surgeon, though.

Profession

A profession is where what you are good at meets what you can be paid for.

This is where most of us spend our time.

We get paid for our work, and most of the time, we are pretty damn good at it.

Usually, the world even needs us to fulfil this role.

But although it can feel comfortable, it can often lack feelings of purpose and joy.

Think of highly skilled disengaged workers who are working incredibly hard in a role that does not bring them joy.

And voila, you get burned out highly skilled professionals.

Vocation

A vocation is often referred to as a ‘calling’.

Think doctor or priest.

For most people who find themselves in a vocation, it fulfils many of the four core roles and is one of the most fulfilling ways for people to spend their time.

However, many people who feel the pull of a vocation often have a different perspective after spending time in the field.

Usually, this is because they feel they cannot pursue their true mission in the domain of their calling.

Many doctors I know feel this way.

In this sense, a vocation can feel claustrophobic; the world needs it, and you are paid for it, but for some reason, it is no longer what you love.

Ikigai

What happens when you can align the four key intersections of:

1. Passion

2. Mission

3. Profession

4. Vocation

You arrive at your Ikigai.

This is a way of being in the world where you spend your time doing what you love, getting paid for doing it and providing something the world needs and that you are good at.

This is the state we are all aiming towards.

The problem is that everyone’s Ikigai will be unique.

It is as Carl Jung says:

“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s”.

The second thing is that the concept of Ikigai does not relate to a destination; it relates to a process.

A life of meaning and purpose is not static but a living, breathing and evolving process.

Think of it more like a river, not a statue.

It is not a place. It is a way of being.

This is important because we can often feel that we will be ‘happy’ when we achieve a certain milestone or have something in our lives.

We practice ‘Horizon Happiness’ by pushing our ability to allow ourselves to be happy over the cognitive horizon each time we hit our milestones.

Ikigai is when our current way of being in the world, which often is how we spend our time at work, resonates deeply with us.

When you are there, you know.

When you are not, you know.

So, if you feel disengaged from work, which is true for over 60% of the workforce, you need to ask yourself if your work fulfils the above criteria.

Identifying how you could spend your time at work in a way that meets these criteria will help you move forward and feel more actively engaged with what you do with your time.

A good way to start is by writing down all the things:

• That you are good at.

• That the world will pay you for.

• That the world needs.

• That you love to do.

And see where there might be an overlap.

This process is not a rigid template; it is a framework.

Do not confuse the map for the territory.

Many who feel disengaged with work feel it is too hard to change.

No doubt it will be hard.

But ask if you are willing to spend the rest of your working life trapped in a role that does not meet the criteria that can make your work fulfilling.

That.

Will be even harder.

So choose your hard.

As Viktor Frankl said after spending four years in a Nazi concentration camp:

“When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.”

There is always scope for change.

And when we change, we grow.

And when we grow, sometimes, just sometimes, we find meaning.

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1. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/608675/new-workplace-employee-engagement-stagnates.aspx