Ikigai. What makes you get up every morning?

I have always believed in the power of words, in fact at the beginning of civilization every word represents an idea. The word was materialized form of a feeling. The Japanese word ikigai (生 き 甲 斐) is the idea of "reason for being" what motivates us, that here we can translate as core.

Find your heart or ikigai is a long journey of self-knowledge, it can take years or even decades to get to meet him.

Every change starts from the inside out.

One of the main teachings of Eastern philosophy is that to become a better person is to start at the inner knowledge. Many confuse meditation with isolation when in fact is an integration exercise. To meditate is to empty the mind mind to be able to separate what are the inner desires of external desires. This allows you to achieve better understand what drives your life. It is not uncommon give ourselves the false desires created a wrong perception of ourselves is by pressure from friends, relatives or spouses. Let their desires override ours, generating a false satisfaction that have an expiration date. Soon our subconscious sends a message that we are on the wrong way through a discomfort, sadness, emptiness.

The real will.

You can ease your search for the reason of being (ikigai), using as a basis a few questions that should be asked yourself the following drawing is an exercise that shows external circles and internal where each question leads to the center answers all of them will be your ikigai.

external:

What you love.

What you are good.

What the world needs.

What you are paid to do.

internal:

His Mission.

His passion.

Your profession.

His vocation.

By answering these questions you will be close to your ikigai, however, while seemingly simple questions the answers require much reflection and self-knowledge, what is only possible with the certainty of that comes from within you and what you want only pair part a circle or seek approval from someone else. So it's good to redo the exercise from time to time, after all, we always know each other and discovering new reasons to face the world every morning.