The Purpose of Life should be defined by not Only the World But Also Us

And It Should Be the Main Theme of Work Also — — My Job-Seeking Related Reflection

I believe in the power of road mapping, vision, and strategy from the product perspective. And I believe that they even help to generate more value and prevent me from distraction and deviation when it comes to my own career choice. When I was just searching for general career advice, this post by Garry Tan came up:

I cannot deny this post has a sense of humor in it while also making a quite serious point. Yes, it is very easy to check if we first assume that the standard of measuring the value of a job that Garry gives could work. But honestly, what do we do after we checked and quitted the job (if we have one in the first place)?

Don’t we need an action plan before quitting something, or we will just be lying on the couch at home having nothing to do?

So if we follow Garry’s logic, we should go ahead and find a job that we either learn or earn or even both if we are lucky. But this would not be called an action plan. Actually, I would say the criteria Garry gives are too broad to act on for ones who are still unclear about what they want to do as a profession. That brings me to my point: How do we know what’s a job that brings us value?

As we are asking the question above, the concept of Ikigai (“A Reson for Being”) comes into the picture. Understanding your own Ikigai not only provides guidance to your job search but also improve your day-to-day life.

To find your Ikigai, you have to understand four elements:

• What you are good at (Purpose)
• What you can get paid for (Profit)
• What the world needs (Problems)
• What you love (Passion)

And what is also important to understand is that in work, we are not merely seeking for:

• big company names/brands
• material value like fame, wealth

but, each one of us is seeking a real sense of purpose and fulfillment, gladness about what we love and are able to do can actually help other people. We may want some of the other things, but none of them would be the main drive but byproducts of our seeking.

Following are some tips that I noticed through chats with Professors, professionals, and friends that I myself find very helpful:

• Never think that when you/others get a long-desired position, that would be the end of the game; always keep a positive learning attitude full of curiosity. As learning and work are both life-long processes, we need to be always prepared for the next challenge, which is also the next opportunity.
• Don’t regret the things that happened in the past; embrace the experiences that seemingly are failures and mistakes. Everything in life evolves. I learned about Ikigai and the fact that I have a huge interest in product management very recently after I applied and accepted a non-pm internship. I had some regret, and it was a lesson to learn, but as long as I learned something valuable in the long run, this pay is worth it. As Maren Kate shared in her post:

Your passions, what the world needs, your skill sets, and what you can get paid for will all likely go through many iterations throughout your lifetime on this blue-green globe. Realizing this early on in your career, and optimizing yourself to embrace change rather than fight it or run from it, will give you a huge leg up — no matter what work you choose to do.

Don’t be afraid of the changes, but keep adjusting yourself toward them.

• Take the initiative in everything: completing tasks, communicate thoughts, and organize meetings and meetups. Thanks to the support of all my connections at Citi, I have no fear of contacting senior management and get the precious opportunities to shadow a project manager, a scrum master, on her daily meetings with the business team, PMs, UX designers, and engineers. If I didn’t take the initiative to ask for further contact and shadowing opportunities, nothing is going to happen.
• Don’t easily compare yourself with others. The workplace is not a school; we are not essentially competing with others, and we are not supposed to (although I would argue for the same thing at schools, )

May we all press on toward our purpose of life and not led astray from so many temptations the world has to us.

Here is some video source that can help you to learn more about Ikigai ordered from shorter to longer length: