What gives your life meaning?
Ikigai is a Japanese idea about the things that make life feel worth living. It doesn't have to be a big purpose or a career. It can be something simple — a person you love, a place that brings you peace, a small thing you look forward to each day.
Eight short questions about your own life — what you do, what has lasted, how it actually feels. There are no right or wrong answers, and nothing to score. At the end Saati brings your reflections together into your own ikigai map, and a few words that reflect what matters to you.
- No sign-up
- Nothing shared
- Your own words
A reflective exercise — not a clinical assessment, a diagnosis, or a substitute for professional care. If you're going through something hard right now, please reach out to someone you trust. In Canada you can call or text 9-8-8 any time, day or night.
First — roughly where are you in life?
This only changes how the questions are worded, so they fit your actual days.
You can leave this blank if nothing comes — but a few words gives you a much better reflection.
Let's stop here for a moment
Talk to a person
9-8-8 — Suicide Crisis Helpline. Call or text, any time, free and confidential,
anywhere in Canada.
911 — if you are in immediate danger.
You can close this page whenever you like. Nothing was saved to send you, and we won't email you.
Reading back what you wrote…
This takes a few seconds. It's worth doing properly.
Your ikigai
Built from what you said — nothing added that wasn't already there.
The thread running through it
Does that sound like you? If it doesn't, trust yourself over this page — you know your life better than a few questions ever could.
One thing worth knowing about the word
Ikigai is an ordinary Japanese word — closer to "what makes the day worth getting up for" than to a grand purpose. In Japan it is used about ordinary things: a garden, a grandchild, the walk you take each morning.
The famous four-circle diagram, the one with "what you can be paid for" in it, is not Japanese and did not come from ikigai research. It was drawn in 2011 as a diagram about purpose, and in 2014 a blogger swapped the word in the middle for "ikigai". It spread from there.
That is why the fourth circle above is what sustains you, not what pays you. A retired eighty-two-year-old and a nineteen-year-old between jobs both score nothing on a money circle, and both have plenty of reason to get up in the morning.
Send me my complete plan
Your reflection, your four circles and the plan above — laid out properly, in your inbox, to keep. Entirely optional: everything is already on this page.
Occasional notes from Saati. No spam, unsubscribe any time. Your answers are stored privately and never shared.