BN#55 The Secret to Finding Your Mission in Life
The 4 Pillars of Meaning, Your Ikigai, and The Canfield Mission Statement
(This is an MHS original graphic of your IKIGAI. LOL)
If the chase of the “Good Life” or rat race can eventually break you down and zap you of your energy, what can create “Meaning” in your life? Finding your “Why” or “Meaning”.
I know it’s a play on the use of words, however, your own “meaning” will create your own “why”. While everyone’s meaning or “why” will be different, the book Superpowered notes that Emily Esfahani Smith found there are 4 pillars of meaning that give people a sense of meaning in life, the things most commonly found to motivate and energize us in life. These 4 pillars are:
Belonging: Contributing and Making a Difference in Life.
Purpose: Your Ikigai will be the closest thought to your purpose—what is inside of you to share.
Storytelling: Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Humans love to share via stories which is a great way to understand who you are. This is your hero’s journey.
Transcendence: This is actually hard to explain. It’s when “you find yourself in awe. Transcendence is when you feel totally outside of your normal, everyday experience.” Transcendence was what Maslow said you reached when you finally reached the top of his pyramid. This is akin to bringing your Flow as your everyday work. This is being your Transcendent Self.
Now the 4 pillars are one way to define it.
Finding Your Ikigai
Ikigai is the Japanese word “the reason for you to wake up in the morning” or your purpose in life. When you use your purpose as the daily guiding force it helps to create your path of what you consider your true life.
One way of finding your Ikigai is to find the intersection of:
What you love to do,
What are your Strengths, and
What the World Needs.
My Ikigai is teaching the world about becoming their best selves. I love to learn, I am good at teaching, and the world needs to know how to become better people to create a better life for themselves and the world.
What is your Ikigai (see diagram above)?
The Canfield Mission Statement
Another way in which I could relate to finding your why is finding your mission. I would say that first, you find out who you are and then you discover your gifts and how to share them with the world. This is your mission or hero’s journey.
I have found Jack Canfield’s exercise to find your mission is the easiest way and the way I found my mission. Many titans of industry have very simple mission statements that drive their lives. Thomas Edison stated mission was to create inventions that people needed, that people would pay for and that would be profitable.
Per Canfield, “Finding your purpose is really discovering what you were put on this earth to do. Your purpose can tell you what to accomplish, for whom, how to accomplish it, and in what time frame. When you discover your purpose, life seems to flow effortlessly, the opportunity seems to fall in your lap, and resources and relationships find you easily. Small successes build upon one another to create unstoppable momentum.”
“My Life Purpose Statement” Worksheet (copyrighted by Self-Esteem Seminars, LP)
Complete the following steps to help you determine your Life Purpose and write a Life Purpose statement.
1. List two of your unique personal qualities, such as enthusiasm and creativity. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. List one or two ways you enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others, such as to support and to inspire. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Assume the world is perfect right now. What does this world look like? How is everyone interacting with everyone else? What does it feel like? This is a statement, in the present tense, describing an ultimate condition, the perfect world as you see it and feel it. Remember a perfect world is a fun place to be.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Combine the three prior subdivisions of this paragraph into a single statement.
Example: My purpose is to use my creativity and enthusiasm to support and inspire others as we all freely express our talents in joyfulness, harmony, and love.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My mission in life is to use my analytical abilities and love of learning to be an exemplar and to help others to live their best lives and life mission as we create a better world together. I then used it to define my 2040 goals of starting 10+ businesses, mentoring/investing in 2000+ entrepreneurs, and teaching 10+ million people. I wrote about this here. https://markhughsam.com/2020/01/02/decide-what-you-want-make-an-i-want-list-my-101-things-i-want-to-accomplish-by-2040/
This article was exerted from BN#38 and BN#37. The entire article is here and here.