Finding Purpose: Why I’m Writing This Blog
A regular day for me and my brain. Self portrait.
Starting this blog wasn’t something I had planned at the beginning of this new year. But fine tuning my career, and life, was something I was really excited to do as the calendars turned over to a fresh year. I love January - it’s always felt like a fresh start for me, and not in the traditional diet planning/workout regime type of way.
I love to use January to dream big and set goals for what I want to accomplish in the next year (and beyond). I actually started my first successful business (the one that allowed me to quit my day job and leap into self employment) as a new year’s resolution back in 2016.
Creating a Vision Board:
As I began to dream about what I wanted to work towards in this new year, I put together a vision board on Pinterest for 2024 (which was actually my first time intentionally creating a vision board for a specific year). As simple as that is, it felt powerful and I felt (and still feel) like I’ve got all the good manifestation juju coming my way. It’s exciting, and I highly recommend trying this easy practice out if you haven’t before!
I started to find myself focusing on career objectives, and legacy goal setting - the big picture questions like how do I want to be remembered? What impact do I want to have on others? What feels authentic to who I really am and what I love and feel passionate about?
Then I came across an inspiring Japanese philosophy and word that I had never heard before: Ikigai.
Ikigai (ee-key-guy): Finding Purpose
Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means your ‘reason for being.’ ‘Iki’ in Japanese means ‘life,’ and ‘gai’ describes value or worth. Your ikigai is your life purpose or your bliss. It’s what brings you joy and inspires you to get out of bed every day (source).
I feel so fortunate to be self employed (this is going to be my 7th year of being my own boss), and to have had the freedom and flexibility that comes with self employment throughout my children’s young lives. As my kids get older, and now that I’ve got them both in stable weekly childcare/school, I am finding myself with more time than I’ve had in 5 and a 1/2 years, to pursue my own hobbies, passions and interests (in and outside of my career as a professional photographer). I love what I do, and feel so grateful to make a living from photography, but I must admit - being remembered as a photographer is not what feels important to me when I think about legacy. What comes naturally and what feels important when I think about what I want to be remembered for and how I want to inspire others on this planet always comes back to living beautifully, and sustainably; taking care of this earth, and teaching the next generation to respect and care for it also.
I saw a wonderful chart, which I’ve drawn for you below, that made thinking about what my Ikigai might be a LOT easier.
The category that was easiest for me to answer immediately was: “what the world needs”. For me, this is obvious: people to live more sustainably, actively work towards repairing damage already done to nature, and to stop our planet’s current bad habit of conspicuous consumption - all of this, with a huge sense of urgency.
And as for what I feel I am good at? Well, besides the singular skills needed to run a photography business (which all luckily apply very well to running a blog), I feel I have also become good at creating a beautiful home and childhood for my family that doesn’t sacrifice on style or comfort, but in a much more sustainable manner than what’s currently the norm for most people!
So, all of that is to say, thinking about my ikigai is what got my wheels turning enough to decide that a blog is a very good place to start sharing all the knowledge I’ve learned over the years, and simply sharing the projects I am constantly working on (which always have an element of reusing, saving money, and sustainability) around the house! If I am able to inspire just one person to make one little change towards more sustainable living, all of this effort will be worth it for me.
My favourite mantra on sustainable living:
This is my favourite sustainability quote, which I think of often and applies perfectly to my mission and hopes for this blog:
“We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.”
So, that’s a round about way of how I got to creating this first blog post for this new blog of mine, and I hope you’ll enjoy sticking around to see what I am working on next! I plan on only sharing my very best recipes, home projects, crafts, design inspiration and sustainable living lessons learned, and so hope you’ll find something here that inspires you!
Before you go:
Now, I’d love for this blog to feel like a community of us all working together to learn, grow, and inspire - so tell me, what do you like to use a new year for, and have you heard of or thought about your own ikigai before? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for being here with me!
