Last year I made a post about my Career Goals for 2018 (https://www.leansparx.com/post/it-s-time-for-some-career-resolutions-2018). Below you will find what those goals were. Since that post, I have made nearly one blog post per week (with some obvious breaks in writing). So to start off this year, I'd like to review my past goals and re-establish new ones for this year! More than that I would like to introduce the concept of Ikigai, or life's purpose or worth. First, let's review what I wanted to accomplish last year.
I seek to Learn more about the Lean Principles.
I seek to Teach others about the knowledge and experience I have.
I seek to have a Positive Impact on the work culture of my company
I seek to Share successes and failures with others
I seek to Focus on my own incremental development
I wrote my goals as things I sought to accomplish. As you can see in many of my blog posts, I spent a lot of time learning more about the Lean Principles. I've read a great deal of books, and put a lot of the leadership side of the principles into practice. I tried out different things in my own life, and by doing so learned more deeply about the principles. I helped to teach others in my professional and personal life. Through this blog I was able to share many stories with others. I am also a part of a Whatsapp group of Lean Maniacs and have shared things with them. In my work, I share stories with others to help them try things for themselves. Through these things I have made a positive impact on the work culture at my company. Interestingly enough, this year I was fortunate enough to have been given a temporary assignment as the Continuous Improvement Manager for the entire company. Through this role, I have interacted with many other executives and have tried to spread many of the leadership principles of Lean. I have shared my success and failure with others, including my own team. Using failure as a way to understand what we can do better, rather than a punishment for trying. Finally, my focus on my own development has led me to try many different things in this past year and looking back, I can see how well I have developed little by little.
These goals are everlasting goals, and will continue throughout my life. This year, I'd like to take a step back and try to understand how things align to my own life's purpose. If you have not looked up the term Ikigai, I recommend that you read up more on it. I've added a video here to help explain it in more detail. For the rest of the blog, I want to reflect on my own life's purpose and establish my ikigai.
So what is it all about? It's a deep reflection on yourself, the world around you, and how you fit within the world. There are some basic steps to this, but realize that at first you will only scratch the surface. Reflecting more deeply will help you define yourself more deeply and help establish yourself within the world around you. I will walk through my own reflection and practice ikigai to help establish my life's purpose.
What do I love?
This first question brings me to what I have always loved. I love learning. I ask many questions, and allow many things to alter my perspectives on the world around me. I enjoy having a child's mind. I was energized each time I learned something new and wanted to tell my parents all about it. It didn't matter to me then if they already knew it, just by knowing something new made me crave sharing it with others. I love learning about people and things, and the why behind it all. It's always been my true love, to learn and through this I have fun. The child's mind is what drives me to this love.
What am I great at doing?
I have been told by my peers that I have a knack for connecting with others. I find that this links up well with the learning that I love. In order to learn more, I need to form relationships with others in order to learn about them, and learn from what they know. I also seek to learn what they need so I may better share my own knowledge with them. I am great at this for some reason. I have also found that I am great at taking many different things from many different perspectives and being able to explain it such that others may understand each other. I have been able to take problems and break them down, and have been able to take seemingly different ideas and see how they link with each other. I am great at sharing stories, connecting with others, and helping others to understand each other.
What does the world need?
The world may be the world around me, or the world at large. It is how I see myself fitting in with others around me. In work especially, I think the world needs a positive energy, hope, and help connecting. I see many people frustrated with each other and leaders relying on archaic policies to drive their behaviors rather than sound principles. The world around me needs principled beliefs and understanding of how people, purpose, and process all interact to create value for the rest of the world outside of ourselves. In order for this to occur the world around me needs help learning. It has grown hard over time for people to change, because we are not practiced in changing. We are more practiced in establishing sameness than we are at challenging the way we think and act. The world around me needs help to practice learning.
What can I be paid to do?
While this seems materialistic, we must understand that in our world we have a common value of exchange. In work terms this means exchange of money for service or thing. Generally though, this may include exchange of a great many things. What does the world value enough to exchange with you to support the lives of us all? That would be a better question in this area, but generally we must think about what we can be paid to do. I already know that I can be paid for what I do. In this past year it seems as though helping others is what people will pay me to do. I have held multiple training classes, helped many people through one-on-one coaching, and led a team for the past 3-4 months by focusing on their learning while also learning how I impact that. Looking forward, I think a lot more one-on-one development is truly needed and seems to be a value in not only my organizations, but others as well. Whatever it is that I do this year, I know that others value learning enough to pay me for it.
So now what? Well, through this reflection I can see how I fit in the world around me. If all these things can connect with each other I have established my practice of ikigai. I have reflected on myself and the world around me and found that I have worth in this life. If I found that any of these areas did not connect than I would not be balanced and my worth would be confusing. This year, more than anything else, I seek to continue this life's purpose in learning and sharing with others to help myself and others develop new ways of thinking, and new ways of acting within our organizations (and personal lives). Later in this year I will come back to this practice to strengthen my own understanding of how I fit in the world around me and build a better understanding of myself and others around me.