After I wrote about Ikigai and how I used it to re-discover my purpose, the most common response was: "OK, but how do I actually do this?"
Fair question. Knowing the framework is one thing. Sitting down with a blank page and four empty circles is another. So here are five tips that helped me, and that I now use with coaching clients regularly.
These tips originally appeared in a Medium post I wrote in 2017. I've updated them with everything I've learned since.
1. Break the pattern
You will not discover your purpose sitting at the same desk where you answer emails.
There's a reason your best ideas come in the shower, on a walk, or at 2am when you can't sleep. Your brain needs novelty to make new connections. Routine is the enemy of insight.
When I was working through my own Ikigai, I used to take ferry trips to small islands and walk through forests. Sounds dramatic. But something about physically leaving my normal environment let my mind go to places it couldn't reach from the couch.
You don't need a ferry. Take an afternoon off. Go to a cafe you've never been to. Walk a route you don't usually walk. The point is to interrupt the autopilot so your brain can wander somewhere new.
2. Clear the noise
Deep thinking requires, well... deep thinking. And you can't do deep thinking with your phone buzzing every 30 seconds.
I used to be scared of silence. Of being alone with my own thoughts. Turns out, that's exactly where the good stuff lives.
Here's a challenge: turn off your phone. Find somewhere quiet. Sit with nothing for 20 minutes. No podcast. No music. No scrolling. Just you.
Your brain will fight it for the first five minutes. Then it'll start making connections you didn't know were there. Ideas will surface that you already had but couldn't hear over the noise.
This isn't meditation (though that helps too). It's just giving your brain the space to do what it's actually built for: pattern recognition.
3. Draw it by hand
Don't google "Ikigai template" and fill in a PDF. Draw the circles yourself. With a pen. On paper.
There's something about the physical act of drawing that activates a different part of your brain. When you type, you're in your conscious, logical mind. When you draw, you bypass that and tap into something deeper. Your unconscious starts working on the problem in ways a spreadsheet never could.
Draw the four circles. Color in the intersections. Label them. Doodle in the margins. Let it be ugly. The messier it is, the more honest it probably is.
4. Use pencil, not pen
This sounds trivial. It's not.
When you write in pen, there's a subtle pressure to get it right the first time. With pencil, you give yourself permission to be wrong. To cross things out, rewrite, rearrange.
Your first draft will not be your final version. It shouldn't be. The point is to get everything out of your head and onto paper, then start sorting.
Write fast. Don't filter. Get 20 things down, then start crossing out the ones that don't feel right. Group what's left. Look for patterns. Rephrase. Sharpen.
I went through at least five drafts before mine started to feel real. And even then, it kept evolving. That's how it's supposed to work.
5. Share it with someone
This is the one most people skip. And it's the most important one.
When you talk about your Ikigai out loud, something shifts. You can hear which parts excite you and which parts you're just saying because they sound good. Your voice changes. Your energy changes. Pay attention to that.
Pick someone you trust. Walk them through your circles. Let them ask questions. They'll see things you can't. They'll push back on the stuff that doesn't ring true. They'll remind you of strengths you've forgotten about.
And here's the bonus: once you've shared your direction with people, your network starts working for you. Friends hear about opportunities and think of you. Connections appear that you couldn't have manufactured.
In my case, sharing my Ikigai with friends is how I ended up in Spain. Someone said "that sounds like coaching" and planted a seed that took a few years to grow into what I do now.
Where this took me
Back in 2017, I narrowed my Ikigai down to three paths in product development. Today, none of those are what I do. And that's the point.
The framework didn't hand me the answer on a plate. It gave me a direction. And each time I revisited it, the direction got clearer. More honest. Closer to something that felt like mine.
If you want to start this process, try the Life Report first. It'll show you which areas of your life are humming and which ones need attention. That context makes the Ikigai exercise much sharper, because you're not starting from a blank page. You're starting from self-awareness.
And if you get stuck? That's what coaching is for. Sometimes you need someone in the room asking the questions you're too close to ask yourself.
