I Found My Ikigai: Thriving in My Life's Purpose
- Terri Seydel
- Oct 17, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 3
Summary: Ikigai is finding your passion, embracing your life purpose, and living a long and joyful life because of it. In midlife, this revelation can feel both exhilarating and daunting, but it’s a call to bet on yourself and step into a more fulfilling, purpose-driven life. Read on to explore how finding my Ikigai led me to a whole new path—and how you can uncover yours, too.
What's in this Post
Throughout my career, I’ve been intentional in choosing roles that allowed me to explore my ever-evolving interests and feed my love of learning. Looking back, it’s interesting to see how each chapter built upon the last, gradually leading me toward a path that, unknowingly, I'd been circling for years. This new pivot required immense courage—a willingness to bet on myself—and it's been the most fulfilling move I've ever made.
What is Ikigai?
It’s a Japanese concept that loosely translates to:
The art of knowing and embracing your life purpose and living a long and joyful life because of it.
Finally, I’ve Found My Ikigai!
But before I can share what that truly means to me, I need to take you through the journey that led me here. Because, in many ways, it wasn’t just about discovering my purpose—it was about how the journey itself shaped that purpose. Without the twists, challenges, and unexpected turns, I wouldn’t have arrived at this truth.
Check out my 'Ikigai' Book Review to learn more about this fascinating concept!
My journey toward life purpose: the truth revealed one step at a time
Looking back, I can see my mindset beginning to shift during the Covid pandemic. Knowing what we know now, that era catapulted many people into new directions. I was no different; it just took me a little longer to build my momentum and develop the skills and connections I needed for my next chapter.
The First Step Forward
For me, it started when I took on a business operations role just before the world turned upside down. I was in a central role in a start-up team within a life sciences enterprise. As the pandemic unfolded, it became increasingly clear that fostering team connectedness, culture, and inclusivity was crucial—things that made people feel valued, empowered, and supported to be their best selves in their roles. I leaned into that need, and despite the challenges of a globally scattered, remote team, we managed to thrive.
Through this experience, I learned how emphasizing a positive and inclusive culture that prioritized personal wellness made people feel genuinely valued and inspired them to use that as momentum for their own growth and performance.
The Next Few Steps
Over the next few years, I continued to foster that same type of team culture in my subsequent roles within the same company. However, company priorities were shifting, leaders were implementing difficult changes, and colleague wellness lost its place on the agenda. Engagement scores plummeted, and I grew increasingly frustrated seeing my peers struggling and feeling helpless and lost in this new corporate paradigm.
Then, just when it seemed like I was juggling it all while trying to be supportive and empathetic to my peers, life threw me a challenge I never expected—a mysterious health issue that left me quite literally struggling to function.
Sometimes, life has a way of redirecting you, even if you aren't prepared for it. With my health suddenly in question, I had to become my own advocate, diving into research to understand what was happening to my body. Eventually, I began to regain my health through persistence and with the support of a few insightful functional health MDs. It was a significant victory, especially considering where I started—with doctors telling me,
“We don’t know what’s wrong, carry an EpiPen, and good luck.”
Through this journey, I learned more than I ever imagined about wellness, toxins in our culture, and the gaps in what we're taught about true, whole-person health. I realized that if I'd had this knowledge earlier, my own health crisis might have been prevented. And it made me think—how many others are out there, feeling lost, frustrated, and let down by a system that can't provide answers? There are too many to count.
The Leap
That’s when I knew it was time to make a change. With all this new knowledge, I developed a deep passion for helping others understand more about 'whole-person' wellness and fortify their lives so they can thrive.
I decided to pivot from my established career in life sciences—where our focus was on improving the patient experience for those already managing disease—toward a focus on wellness and the prevention of chronic health issues. It felt like everything I had experienced was pointing me in this direction, and for the first time, I truly listened. So, I made a big bet on myself and left Corporate America to become a Certified Wellness Practitioner.
Ikigai Revealed
Now, as a Certified Wellness Practitioner, I’ve set out to share knowledge, inspire change, and help people see the bigger picture of well-being. It’s not just about one aspect of health but about bringing all the elements of life into harmony to foster a thriving sense of wellness.
I call this approach—where we blend our unique needs from all aspects of wellness into a plan that fuels long-term well-being—"Fuze Your Future." It's about integrating physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health into a comprehensive wellness plan that's tailored to your individual needs and goals.
I’m grateful you’re here, and I hope you’ll join me on this journey of learning, growth, and becoming the strongest, best version of ourselves. Together, we can thrive!
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