Finding your purpose in life in the age of AI.
‘What am I doing with my life?’
It’s a question that sometimes comes up when we are five days and too many cocktails into our annual holiday. Or perhaps it’s a quiet thought just after we watch a documentary about an absolute hero who climbed Everest with one hand tied behind their back (or some equally astounding feat). Unless we can afford regular therapy or life coaching sessions, or have a particularly supportive partner or work leader, unfortunately, this question can often be fleeting. This means that usually, before we can gain a meaningful answer, we are back into the grind of reality. We wake up, we pay the bills, and we forget the big questions. 🙁
Now, however, Chat GPT can help.
In a fun overlap of the traditional and the cutting edge, the now very old Japanese concept of Ikigai and the very now tool of Chat GPT have a fun little friendship blossoming. If you’ve not heard of Ikigai before, it is a conceptual tool to help you figure out what you love doing, what the world needs, what you are good at and what you can actually get paid to do. Here is a little overview we have of a great book on Ikigai on our Blinkist platform.
There are a few versions of the prompt you can put into Chat GPT to help find your life’s purpose, but here is one you can try.
‘Act as an Ikigai coach by asking me detailed questions about my life. Continue asking questions until you have a complete understanding of where my passions, proficiencies, and purpose, intersect in a profitable way. Your goal is to develop a deep understanding of what I love to do and how I can make money at it. Once you are extremely confident that you understand my situation well, give me advice on what I should do with my career to be happy and live a purposeful life.’
You will then be asked a few questions. Try to take some time out to fill them out in as detailed and thoughtful a manner as you can. Chat GPT will then make some recommendations for you. If you can, try to take a moment to actually reflect on what you get back rather than simply seeing it as a tricky gimmick!
Now, the important next step is what you do with that! Because having a concise overview of your life’s purpose will make exactly zero impact on your life unless you take action.
A great first step is to give yourself a license to learn more about the areas you’d like to step into over the coming years. Whilst a two-year master’s or a three-year bachelor’s degree is a great option to support that learning, why not try some just-in-time adult learning on your Go1 platform? With thousands of K-12 relevant learning items, you can rapidly upskill to support your goals in education. Equally, if your passions lay outside the classroom (which is OK!), you have access to tens of thousands more courses with Go1. You just need to reach out to us at ec@go1.com to talk about what we can turn on for your school’s subscription.
So here is a little challenge that you don’t need to save for cocktail hour on holiday or find an inspiring documentary to catalyse.
- Type the prompt we shared above into ChatGPT.
- When you get your result, find a course or some learning on EC Premium (or any other platform) that supports you in your Ikigai, and begin learning immediately.
Good luck with the rest of your life!
The EC Team
