Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success (How to set goals, stop procrastinating, be more productive, build good habits, focus, & thrive)

by Anthony Raymond

In the Okinawan language there is not even a word for retirement. Instead there is one word that imbues your entire life, and that word is “Ikigai.” And, roughly translated, it means “the reason for which you wake up in the morning.” For this 102 year old karate master, his Ikigai was carrying-forth his martial art, for this 100-year-old fisherman, it was continuing to catch fish for his family—three times a week… The Institute on Aging actually gave a questionnaire to…these centenarians, and one of the questions was… “what is your Ikigai?” And they all instantly knew why they woke up in the morning.