What do you love? What are you good at? What does the world need? What can you get paid for? If your answer to all four questions is “teaching,”
then congratulations! You have found your ikigai (ee- key-guy)—a Japanese concept meaning you have a direction or purpose in life, that special something that makes your life worth living, your raison d’être.
According to Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, authors of Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, it’s what brings meaning, joy, and longevity to those who find it.
On the island of Okinawa, Japan, nearly a quarter of the population is more than 100 years old. And in Ogimi, a rural village on the island nicknamed the “Village of Longevity,” residents enjoy the highest life expectancy of anywhere in the world.
In researching their book, García and Miralles found that one of the secrets of the Ogimi centenarians, in addition to more obvious practices such as healthy eating and daily exercise, is ikigai—a way of life that has been practiced in Japan for more than a millennium. This philoso- phy combines four fundamental components that unite to create the conditions for happiness: It is the point where what you love, what you are good at, what you are valued and paid for, and what the world needs, intersect.
Finding that sweet spot—that way of living that gives you daily satisfaction, more balance and harmony, and less stress in your life—may have been difficult if not impossible during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. So NEA Today spoke with García to find out how educators can still discover or rediscover their ikigai.
Educators are often drawn to the profession because they want to serve others, they care about children, and they want to make a difference in the world. Is this part of ikigai?
HG: Both of my parents were high school teachers in Spain all of their working lives. They drew great satisfaction by serving and teaching others. For nearly 40 years, they taught hundreds of kids, who later in life came back to express their gratitude. Serving even one person can have a huge impact in the world. You might be teaching a future innovator, a future engineer, or even a future president. It is both a major responsibility and a huge honor to educate the people that will create the future.
If your ikigai is connected to serving others, the other circles of ikigai will come naturally, because you probably love teaching and you are good at it, or you are learning to become better through gaining experience and honing your skills. And though the pay may be low, many teach- ers consider doing creative things on the side to create secondary revenue streams aligned with their ikigai.
One of the top reasons teachers burn out is overwhelming stress, which has been at an all-time high during the pandemic. How can the principles of ikigai help them?
HG: It is not easy to deal with the pandemic stress; nobody was ready for it. One of the principles of ikigai is to be always busy but not in a stressed way. How do we do this?
By focusing on the task at hand, enjoying what we do. This is something we observed in the centenarians living in Ogimi. There, even centenarians are always busy doing things, like taking care of their garden, talking with their loved ones, or playing table games.
You never see stress in their faces, only smiles. You can try to implement the same philosophy in your daily tasks. Focus on doing the task at hand in the best way you can.
Sometimes stress comes by visualizing or overthinking things before they actually happen, and once we start doing them, we find we actually enjoy them. In the con- text of teaching, we might be very stressed about plan- ning the curriculum for a new course, but once we get to the task of doing it and actually teaching it, I’m sure it can be a joy to feed your soul, to feed your ikigai in teaching.
How can teachers excel in their profession by finding their ikigai?
HG: Ikigai is about feeling the energy of life no matter what the circumstances. It is not easy when others, such as institutions or bureaucracies, put restrictions on how you want to lead your professional life. But you can approach that by doing your best at what you do. You can counter restrictions, indirectly, by always showing up, putting forth your noblest effort, and inspiring others.
Public school teachers are often burdened with paperwork—data reports, grading, testing, and forms, to name a few. How does ikigai make this aspect of teaching feel less burdensome?
HG: In one of the chapters of the book, we talk about the concept of flow. We reach flow when we are fully absorbed by the task at hand. Of course, paperwork is the worst...it kills our flow! When I’m in the process of filing paperwork for Japanese taxes, it kills some of my writing flow time, which I enjoy the most. My strategy is to batch time for paperwork, and once I am done, I focus on my creative work. If you don’t batch paperwork, it will come and interrupt your work all the time.
How can the concept of resiliency in ikigai help teachers after this turbulent year?
HG: Resiliency is about being ready to deal with what- ever happens in our lives. Knowledge and preparation help us to be flexible. For teachers, you’ve learned to offer instruction online. You can take this new skill and put it to your advantage in the future. We can always learn from turbulent times. We become stronger and more ready for what the future might bring.
How can teachers help their students find their ikigai?
HG: We have just published a new book, Ikigai for Teens: Finding Your Reason for Being. Instead of asking students what they want to do in the future, ask them what is your purpose in life, what is your ikigai? Follow up with further questions to help them figure it out. For example, ask what they most enjoy doing every day and what they are good at. Then ask if they can think of a career or a way to make money by combining those two things. In this way, you can help them on their way to a long, meaningful life with ikigai.
