Ikigai: The Perfect Career Diagnostic

An Iterative Approach To Discovering Your True Purpose

Take a wild guess: what percentage of full-time workers around the world are either not engaged at their jobs, or downright hate them? Wait for it…85%. Let that sink in—only 15% of the world’s one billion full-time workers are enthusiastic about their work. Gallup, the research-based, global performance-management consulting company that revealed this insight, has determined that we are in the middle of a full-blown Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis.

I’ve been gainfully employed for nearly a decade, primarily applying myself as a marketing professional within the education industry. How I became the Managing Director of Student Life Network wasn’t the result of induced epiphanies. I didn’t have the luxury of a gap year after high-school/during post-secondary, or a backpacking adventure upon graduation, to discover my true calling. Like most young adults, I had to treat my career as an iterative process—with every subsequent job, I sought a little more of what I liked in my previous role, and little less of what I didn’t like. From the Canadian Armed Forces to Sony Music Entertainment, from the University of Toronto to Ryerson University—my career moves were governed by this rule. It was a helpful heuristic approach, but its outlook was too near-sighted for my…