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)

In The Art of Living, the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c. 50-135 AD) wrote: Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and cannot control that in

As the English novelist Paula Hawkins wrote: The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps.

Kaizen teaches us how to atomize big obstacles; how to break them down into their more manageable component parts so that we might build up the psychological momentum to overcome each hurdle via consistent daily action.

Autonomy describes our desire to lead a self-directed life.

Ikigai is a Japanese life strategy that emphasizes the importance of finding your “true calling.”

People are good at recognizing the value of a finished product. But lousy at discerning the number of steps required for its construction.

To procrastinate is to voluntarily delay an intended course of action—despite expecting to be worse off for the delay.

Principle 3. Accept that painful memories might resurface

Kaizen Principle 1: Start working toward your goal immediately, even if your first action is laughably small.