What do success and Ikigai have in common?

Finding your Ikigai, having success, the similarity between Ikigai and success is that it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time.

This statement by Steve Jobs also applies to your Ikigai:

“I am always amazed that a sudden success can have such a long lead time”.

You don’t find your Ikigai in one day, and so also success is a result of a longer process. Success is a result of a long trajectory. What preceded it is often not visible, or no longer visible.

Look at top athletes. They start with a sport because they ‘just’ like it. Then they also turn out to be good at it and they have set themselves the goal of reaching the top. To achieve success with their talent. Talent by itself is not enough for that. You have to make sacrifices. You have to leave things behind, and do things when you don’t feel like it. Getting up early to follow your training programme, when you would rather turn in again in your nice warm bed.

Or in the business world, taking a long time before you make your first euro profit. Keep going, persevere. Think of the ‘iceberg illusion’. Above the water the iceberg: the success, but invisible, under the water a much bigger block of ice: perseverance, trial and error, sacrifice, disappointment, hard work, persistence, discipline, etc.

But if you know it won’t be there in one day, then you can be more at peace with the fact that it just takes a little longer. Give it time. And take regular breaks. Think, loaf and see what a good next step in your process will be to achieve your goal. And if that step is not the right one, don’t make a problem of it and take another step.

The same goes for your Ikigai. How do you find it? How do you go about it? This process also takes time, but you can start with it. We found this video that very easily explains how you can go about this. It only takes a few minutes and very clearly explains in 4 steps how you can do this. Good luck with finding your Ikigai!