21 Days to Ikigai

Find Your Purpose Through Japanese Wisdom

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What You'll Experience Each Week

Week 1: Unlearning

Dismantle Western misconceptions. Clear out the pressure to find one grand passion. Rebuild your capacity for genuine curiosity. Create your Curiosity Inventory.

Week 2: The Five Pillars

Work through Japanese researchers’ framework. Develop specific practices for each pillar. Identify your primary pillar - the one needing most attention right now.

Week 3: Integration

Bring Ikigai into your work. Understand the connection to flow states. Create synergistic balance. Establish gratitude practice. Develop your Ikigai Guiding Principle and continuation plan.

What is Ikigai?

If you've seen the popular Venn diagram with four overlapping circles promising to reveal your life's purpose, I need to tell you something: that's not Ikigai.

That diagram was created by a Spanish astrologer. It's a Western invention that has almost nothing to do with the actual Japanese concept.

Ikigai (生き甲斐) literally translates to "a reason for being" or "a reason to wake up in the morning." But in Japanese culture, it's not about finding one grand purpose that defines your entire life. It's about the collection of small things that make your daily life feel worthwhile.

During my thirteen years living in Japan while pursuing my PhD in Cultural Sociology at Osaka University, I never once heard a Japanese person talk about their Ikigai as a single grand calling. Instead, they spoke about small pleasures - the morning ritual of making tea, the satisfaction of tending a garden, the joy of mastering a craft over decades.

Ikigai comes from hundreds of small moments, not one big revelation.

Watch and learn about the program here:

The Problem

You're successful by conventional measures but feel like you're on autopilot. You're constantly busy but can't remember the last time you felt genuinely absorbed in something. You keep looking for the next achievement, thinking that will finally bring satisfaction - but it never quite does.

You've tried:

Setting bigger goals (they feel overwhelming or empty once achieved)

Following your passion (but you're not sure what that even is)

Pursuing work-life balance (but you're always failing on one side or the other)

Reading productivity books (they give you more to do, not more meaning)

The Western approach to purpose is all or nothing. Find your calling. Make a dramatic change. Overhaul your entire life. No wonder it feels impossible.

The Japanese approach is different. Small adjustments. Daily practices. Attention to what's already present rather than what's missing.

Your Transformation

In 21 days, you will have:

Your Ikigai Guiding Principle - a north star that helps you make decisions and prioritize your time without rigidly locking you into one path.

Clarity on what actually matters - A Curiosity Inventory identifying 25 specific interests, learning to distinguish genuine fascination from scattered anxiety.

The Five Pillars Framework - Ken Mogi's research-based approach: Starting Small, Releasing Yourself, Harmony and Sustainability, The Joy of Little Things, Being in the Here and Now.

Daily practices that stick - Morning joy ritual, breathwork for staying present, gratitude practice. Minimal routines designed for real life, not ideal life.

Tools for your actual work - Job crafting techniques to find more satisfaction in your current role without a complete career change.

Synergistic Balance - Creating a life where different domains feed each other rather than compete. Real integration, not impossible perfect balance.

A 30-Day Continuation Plan - So this doesn't become another course you complete and forget.

What's Included

21 daily video lessons (5-10 minutes each)

7 detailed worksheets and practice guides

Curiosity Inventory template

Job Crafting Assessment Tool

Synergistic Balance Map

Gratitude Journal starter pages

Ikigai Guiding Principle Workbook

30-Day Continuation Plan Template

Lifetime access

This Course is For You If:

You're tired of surface-level advice and want something with depth
You're successful but feel like something's missing
You want to find satisfaction in your current life, not wait for everything to change
You're drawn to Japanese philosophy but don't know how to apply it

This Course is NOT For You If:

You want a quick fix without daily engagement

You expect someone to tell you what your purpose should be

You're looking for career tactics rather than meaning

You won't actually do the practices

About Josh Smith

PhD in Cultural Sociology/Japanese Studies, Osaka University and training at the Flow Research Collective with Steven Kotler. Over thirteen years living and working in Japan. Shakuhachi practitioner. Author of "SHIZEN STYLE FLOW: A Creative's Guide to Natural Living and Optimal Experience." Creator of "Master the Quiet Lens" photography course.

I'm not a motivational speaker or life coach. I'm a researcher and practitioner who has spent decades studying these concepts academically and living them practically.

Start Today

You've spent enough time searching for purpose in all the wrong ways.

What if instead of searching for one grand purpose, you learned to recognize the hundreds of small things that make life genuinely worthwhile?

What if instead of constantly reaching for the next achievement, you could find satisfaction in what's already present?

What if instead of feeling fragmented, you could create real synergy between work, family, and personal interests?

Twenty-one days from now, you'll have your Ikigai Guiding Principle, daily practices that sustain meaning, and a framework you'll use for years.