Sarah Seeking Ikigai Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

I love the term cosy web. It reminds me that I found lots of my kind of people online in the early days, from right across the world, and it was awesome.

Ikigai, a reason for being, the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. 

I’m trying to find ways to make my life happier and easier as well as feeling more fulfilled more consistently.  It is easy though to fall into a trap of thinking that there is something wrong with you if you don’t have it all figured out.  I approached this project “Sarah Seeking Ikigai” thinking that there should be something to make this process quicker and easier.  I still believe that there are ways to achieve that, or certainly tangible methods and products that can help at key inflection points in life.  I need to remember the value of applying this thinking more broadly though and the fact there isn’t a single answer, it isn’t a one time and done question or methodology.

Understanding the problem thoroughly is critical for effective and innovative solutions. Do you rush to fix mode without fully understanding the problem? A common pitfall that can lead to misaligned solutions, wasted resources, and missed opportunities.  Ikigai thinking can provide helpful framing here.

I sit at my desk, trying for the tenth time in as many weeks to condense my ideas into an increasingly convoluted mind map in my bullet journal. Testament to a mind that races faster than my ability to keep up or tease a succinct message from. My thoughts can be like fireflies, flickering and impossible to catch. My beautiful rainbow coloured journal is a reflection of both my mind and my process for trying to quieten the noise in it.

It was never a viral vid. That was over dramatic use of a word in a headline to hook in a few extra readers. I’ve had other comments on this particular video that make me smile a lot, but I had expected them to fade away more quickly than they have.  The way this one was worded really struck a chord, especially in the context of what I am trying to explore here.  Does this have the hallmarks of content that inspires true fans? The use of the word KIND really makes me happy, being asked to never take it down and being wished well, that works for me. As long as YouTube exists and I’m still able to read notifications, well I will keep that video there and still acknowledge and thank the beautiful people it resonates with.

The first question you are asked when meeting someone new is often that old chestnut, “so what do you do for a living?”  I have issues with this. Many times I’ve had a job title that doesn’t mean much to the general public. Perhaps the literal answer to that question isn’t the most interesting thing about me at that point in time.  We ask questions to understand and to find connection. I am drawn to the quest towards ikigai because of the beauty and simplicity there is in your purpose aligning with the answer to this common question.

“We are being taught by technology that we don’t look good enough, with built in filters and blurs to all the most popular apps.”