PDF Summary:Ikigai & Kaizen, by Anthony Raymond

Pursuing meaningful goals is key to living a fulfilling life, but many people struggle to take action and make progress toward their goals. In Ikigai & Kaizen, Anthony Raymond suggests that three obstacles contribute to this struggle—insufficient motivation, unawareness of self-sabotaging behaviors, and fear of taking action.

He argues that you can overcome these obstacles and feel more empowered to tackle your goals by integrating three Japanese strategies: Find your ikigai (pursue your life purpose), practice hansei (reflect on and address unconstructive behaviors), and implement kaizen (make progress with small, consistent actions).

This guide walks you through Raymond’s explanations of the obstacles standing between you and your goals and how his Japanese-inspired solutions help overcome them. Additionally, we’ll supplement his ideas with psychological research and advice from other self-improvement experts.

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He explains that the issues that prevent you from making progress—like mistakes or problems—usually stem from repeating seemingly innocent behaviors. These behaviors usually feel innocent because, in isolation, they’re easy to rationalize and dismiss. For example, say you sleep in one morning instead of working on an upholstery project. You might rationalize that a single late morning won’t derail your progress, and anyway, sleeping a little more might make you more productive or creative.

(Shortform note: According to psychologists, cognitive dissonance drives you to rationalize and dismiss self-sabotaging behaviors. Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort you feel when your actions conflict with your goals or values. After you engage in a self-sabotaging behavior, you unconsciously resolve the resulting discomfort by reinterpreting your behavior—for example, by rationalizing that the behavior was beneficial or necessary. This rationalization alleviates your discomfort, allowing you to pretend that your actions are consistent with your goals.)

However, Raymond argues that rationalizing such behaviors thwarts progress in two ways: First, it blinds you to the negative consequences of your self-sabotaging behaviors. Second, it leads you to blame other factors for the problems your self-sabotage causes.

1) You’re Blind to the Negative Consequences of Your Self-Sabotaging Behaviors

Raymond argues that rationalizing self-sabotaging behaviors makes you blind to their negative consequences—and this, in turn, makes you more likely to repeat and keep rationalizing those behaviors. Over time, the negative consequences of these behaviors add up, resulting in mistakes or problems that derail your progress.

Raymond uses the Chinese concept of lingchi (“death by a thousand cuts”) to illustrate this: One small cut causes only a slight hurt, which is why it’s easy to ignore, but a thousand cuts will kill you. For example, sleeping in one morning isn’t a big deal. But after many lazy mornings, you’re running behind on an order that’s due. In your rush to complete it, you make many mistakes, creating a subpar piece of furniture.

(Shortform note: Confirmation bias—the tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information in ways that confirm your beliefs—might explain why rationalizing self-sabotaging behaviors blinds you to their consequences. Once you’ve rationalized a behavior, confirmation bias makes you unconsciously filter information to support that rationalization, paying more attention to evidence that the behavior was justified while disregarding or minimizing any negative consequences. This selective attention prevents you from recognizing the cumulative damage of your self-sabotage, leaving you surprised when problems finally become undeniable.)

2) You Blame Other Factors for the Problems Your Self-Sabotaging Behaviors Cause

According to Raymond, rationalizing your small, self-sabotaging behaviors prevents you from recognizing how, over time, you’re contributing to the issues thwarting your progress. And this lack of recognition leads you to attribute blame for mistakes and problems to one-time events or external factors. For example, you might believe the negative feedback you receive for the furniture you upholstered is due to a bad day at work or a difficult customer. As a result, you continue to engage in the same behaviors, repeating mistakes and creating even more problems—for example, continually creating flawed pieces might lead to multiple unsatisfied customers and demands for refunds.

(Shortform note: According to research, you might shift blame outward rather than inward due to the way self-serving bias works in tandem with cognitive dissonance to protect your desire for consistency. Self-serving bias is the tendency to interpret events in ways that favor yourself, attributing positive outcomes to your actions while attributing negative outcomes to external circumstances. When problems arise from your self-sabotaging behaviors, self-serving bias prevents the psychological discomfort that would arise from acknowledging that your behaviors not only conflict with your goals, but also contribute to your problems.)

Solution: Practice Hansei

According to Raymond, practicing hansei helps overcome the tendency to rationalize and ignore self-sabotaging behaviors. Hansei is a concept that roughly translates to “reflect on the past.” It involves evaluating your role in mistakes and problems, identifying self-sabotaging behaviors, and devising plans to replace those behaviors with more constructive ones. This process increases both your awareness of when you’re engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors and your sense of responsibility for changing these behaviors.

(Shortform note: Social psychologists suggest you’re more likely to benefit from reflective exercises if you focus on specific, changeable behaviors (what you do) rather than on your personality (who you are). Focusing on your personality makes you feel powerless because it attributes setbacks to inherent, unchangeable traits—such as believing you messed up your project because you’re lazy or not good enough. On the other hand, focusing on modifiable behaviors directs you to specific actions you can take to improve both yourself and your circumstances. For example, acknowledging that you’re more inclined to make errors when you sleep in after a late night indicates a way to make fewer mistakes: going to bed early.)

Raymond suggests regularly devoting at least 10 minutes of uninterrupted time for hansei practice—the more often you practice, the easier it will be to maintain awareness of self-sabotaging behaviors and to follow through on strategies to overcome them. (Shortform note: James Clear (Atomic Habits) suggests you’ll find it easier to practice regularly if you schedule your practice between activities you already enjoy. By doing so, you’ll begin to associate your practice with pleasurable activities, which will make you want to practice regularly.)

To practice, follow this four-step process: 1) Reflect on a recent problem. 2) Log behaviors that may have contributed to the problem. 3) Make a plan for overcoming problematic behaviors. 4) Practice even when you don’t have problems. Let’s explore each step in detail.

Step 1) Reflect on a Recent Problem

Pick a recent mistake or problem, reflecting on how you contributed to it and how you might’ve handled it differently. Raymond suggests that reverse-engineering issues in this way opens your eyes to the consequences of your self-sabotaging behaviors, making it more difficult to rationalize and ignore those behaviors. One way to do this is with the “five whys” technique, in which you ask yourself why you made the mistake, followed by asking why your answer occurred, and repeating the process three more times.

Ask Yourself “What” Instead of “Why”

Tasha Eurich, author of Insight, suggests that instead of asking “why” per Raymond’s advice, it’s more effective to ask future-oriented “what” questions. She explains that asking “why” often elicits responses that emphasize what you’ve done wrong, thereby disempowering you from making the changes you want. For example, asking yourself why you received bad reviews might evoke responses like “I didn’t work hard enough,” “I wasn’t creative enough,” or “I didn’t know what I was doing.” Instead of empowering you to improve your behaviors, such responses lead you to emotionally engage with your mistakes and wallow in self-pity (Raymond warns against this later on in this section).

On the other hand, Eurich argues that asking “what” questions allows you to maintain emotional distance and gain awareness of your role in problems without feeling bad about yourself. It does this by encouraging you to focus on what you can do better next time rather than why you failed last time. For example, asking yourself what you can do to receive better reviews might evoke a response like “Quality-check products before shipping them.” This response indicates how you contributed to the problem (you didn’t check it), while also leading you to a solution for correcting your behavior and avoiding the problem in the future.

Raymond warns you to be careful not to spiral into self-criticism—the goal is to learn from your behaviors, not beat yourself up for them. For example, you might reflect on the negative reviews you’ve received, noting that allocating more time to the projects would have resulted in fewer mistakes and happier customers.

(Shortform note: To overcome self-critical thoughts, focus on self-compassion during this step. For example, acknowledge that you’ve been doing the best that you can, or consciously forgive yourself for any mistakes that you’ve made. By shifting your focus from criticism to kindness, you’ll be better able to understand your self-sabotaging behaviors without falling prey to self-defeating thoughts.)

Step 2) Log Behaviors That May Have Contributed to the Problem

Log the behaviors that may have contributed to this mistake or problem, including details about when, where, or who you’re with when you engage in them. Raymond says that this context might reveal why you engage in those behaviors. For example, you might realize that you always feel more tempted to sleep in and avoid working on your project after a long night of binge-watching TV.

(Shortform note: James Allen (As A Man Thinketh) clarifies how knowing why you engage in self-sabotaging behaviors helps you overcome those behaviors. He argues that without this understanding, you’re more likely to believe that you have no control over the way you act, and you won’t feel motivated to improve your behaviors.

Advice on Defining Your Self-Sabotaging Behaviors

Psychologists expand on this step with practical advice for identifying your self-sabotaging behaviors. They suggest that you should reflect on times when you:

• Blame others for your feelings or circumstances: When you don’t explore how you’ve contributed to your issues, you don’t take responsibility for or learn from your experiences.

• Abandon your goals: Instead of making an effort to fulfill your needs, you let setbacks and difficulties convince you to walk away from what you want.

• Procrastinate: You lack the motivation to do what you need to do, are easily distracted, and suffer from self-doubt or feelings of overwhelm.

• Antagonize others: You undermine your relationships by provoking arguments, acting inconsiderately, or using passive-aggressive techniques.

Reflecting on these areas might help you uncover more details about why you engage in your self-sabotaging behaviors. For example, perhaps you often blame your friend’s invitation to “just watch one more episode” for your late-night binge-watching habit, when the real issue is that you watch TV to distract yourself from thinking about other stressors in your life.

Step 3) Make a Plan for Overcoming Problematic Behaviors

Make a plan for avoiding these behaviors in the future. Raymond argues that once you know that a specific behavior creates a problem, you immediately have a solution for that problem that you can control: Stop engaging in the behavior. This requires you to use the insights you gathered in Step 2 to devise a plan for replacing the behavior with a more positive one. For example, you might restrict yourself to watching only a single episode, get to bed earlier, and commit to getting out of bed as soon as your alarm goes off.

(Shortform note: Research suggests that setting and reviewing intentions might help you follow through with your plan. This is because intentions force you to focus on who you want to be, and they increase your self-discipline when you’re faced with conflicting choices. For example, setting an intention every evening to wake up early the next day and hone your upholstery skills focuses your mind on being a skilled and productive artisan. As a result, you know the right way to act when faced with a decision between sleeping in and working constructively.)

Step 4) Practice Even When You Don’t Have Problems

Raymond adds that even when everything’s going well, there’s always room for improvement. Therefore, he recommends engaging in hansei practice even if you don’t have any unwanted issues to reflect on. For example, if you’re happy with a completed project, you might reflect on things that could’ve been better—like how you might’ve completed it more quickly, cheaply, or with less stress.

(Shortform note: Psychologists warn that constantly pushing yourself to improve, as Raymond encourages, can lead to burnout—a kind of emotional exhaustion characterized by feelings of overwhelm, fatigue, and frustration. This risk suggests that it might occasionally pay to simply appreciate times when everything’s going well instead of trying to optimize them. Taking it easy when times are good might better enable you to succeed in the long run, since it’ll help you feel healthier, happier, and more motivated to succeed.)

Conquer Goal-Related Fears by Implementing Kaizen

By the time you’ve found your ikigai and devised plans for overcoming any self-sabotaging behaviors, you’ll likely have several goals you want to follow through on. However, Raymond suggests that many people face a third obstacle that prevents them from moving forward: They fear taking action. In this section, we’ll explore this obstacle and clarify why Raymond’s solution is key to overcoming it.

Obstacle: You Fear Taking Action

Raymond suggests that fear of taking action often results from pursuing goals that are too large or challenging. Such goals create uncertainty about where to begin and how to proceed, and they require you to invest a great deal of time and effort—which often means changing your routine. Since your brain believes that familiar routines keep you physically and mentally safe, it perceives uncertainty and change as threats it must protect you from. It does this by inducing psychological resistance in the form of fear, anxiety, or overwhelm—uncomfortable feelings designed to convince you to revert to your familiar, safe routine instead of taking action toward your goal.

How Default Patterns and Neuro-Associations Influence Threat Perception

Nicole LePera (How to Do the Work) adds insight into why change feels threatening by explaining two key points about your subconscious mind (which manages your threat response):

1. Your subconscious mind creates default patterns of behavior based on what you think, feel, and do most often so that you can engage in your routines automatically, without conscious thought.

2. Your subconscious mind believes that your default patterns keep you safe and must be preserved—so it resists changing them by creating mental and physical discomfort (including feelings of fear and anxiety) each time you deviate from your default patterns, just as Raymond indicates.

Tony Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within) expands on what LePera says, explaining that your subconscious mind creates neuro-associations—linking certain experiences with pleasure and others with pain—to distinguish between safe routines and threatening changes. In other words, it links your default patterns of behavior with feelings of pleasure while associating changes to these defaults with pain and the potential for threat.

Robbins argues that it’s possible to change your routine and create new default patterns of behavior without suffering psychological resistance or discomfort. To achieve this, you need to reprogram your subconscious mind to associate the changes you want with pleasurable feelings. This will convince your subconscious mind that it’s safe to engage in a new routine—as a result, it won’t feel the need to induce resistance or discomfort.

Large Goals Increase the Risk of Failure

Additionally, large goals exacerbate psychological resistance by increasing the risk of failure. Raymond explains that the larger and more complex a goal is, the more steps it requires, the more skills you need to master, and the more obstacles you’re likely to encounter along the way. Each additional step, skill, and obstacle represents another chance for something to go wrong—increasing the likelihood that you’ll fail somewhere in the process. Since failure tends to trigger painful emotions such as shame and disappointment, your brain interprets this heightened risk of failure as a potential threat to your psychological safety, causing it to induce even more fear and discomfort to prevent you from taking action.

Your Subconscious Mind Protects Your Self-Perception

The feelings of shame and disappointment Raymond mentions are often linked to your beliefs about yourself rather than to any individual behavior. This, combined with psychologist Prescott Lecky’s self-consistency theory, sheds light on why larger goals induce so much fear and psychological resistance. Lecky argues that your subconscious mind is programmed to protect your beliefs about yourself and to align your behaviors with these beliefs. This means that:

• Your behaviors always reflect your self-beliefs.

• Your subconscious mind resists adopting behaviors that contradict your self-beliefs.

Further, your subconscious mind creates resistance even when you attempt to make a positive change, such as eating healthier or working more productively. This is because your subconscious doesn’t judge whether your beliefs are “good” or “bad”—it only seeks to protect them. It follows that the bigger the change you attempt to make to your behaviors (and therefore to your beliefs), the more threatened your subconscious mind feels—and the more psychological discomfort (fear) it creates to resist this change.

Solution: Implement Kaizen

Raymond suggests that implementing kaizen can quell any fears you’re holding onto, making it easier to progress toward your goals. Kaizen is a concept that roughly translates to “continuous improvement.” It involves taking small, consistent, and achievable steps—tiny actions that won’t trigger your brain’s threat response or the resulting psychological resistance and goal-related fears. Raymond explains four ways that kaizen circumvents the obstacles created by your subconscious:

1. It gets you to break down large goals into very small and effortless actions. Because these actions require minimal time and effort, they don’t disrupt your routine and pull you out of your comfort zone.

(Shortform note: In addition to safeguarding your routine, breaking goals into small actions helps you make progress by increasing your self-confidence. According to Chip and Dan Heath (Switch), contemplating a large, distant change can discourage you: “I’ll never be able to sell my furniture. I have no idea where to start.” On the other hand, small, frequent actions ensure you’re focused on the next step instead of far ahead. Each time you accomplish a small action, you become more confident you’ll take the next one: “Now that I’ve decided what type of furniture to make, it’ll be easy to sketch a simple design.”)

2. It removes uncertainty by providing direction. Restricting your focus to the smallest possible next step helps you feel clear about exactly what you need to do to progress toward your goal. (Shortform note: Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within) agrees that restricting focus in this way gives you direction as to what you need to do and also when you plan to do it. He adds that this specificity helps you make progress in two ways. First, it makes it easier to imagine the benefits of completing the step—and these positive expectations increase your motivation. Second, it allows you to plan and prepare for potential obstacles, improving your chances of overcoming setbacks and helping you maintain momentum.)

3. It eliminates the risk of failure. Because these actions are so effortless and achievable, you approach them with confidence, knowing you can successfully complete them. (Shortform note: Like Raymond, BJ Fogg (Tiny Habits) suggests that small actions reduce the fear associated with change because they’re psychologically safe. This is because, in addition to being easy to achieve, they’re also easy to keep private. As a result, you’re able to take action without worrying about external judgments or expectations—in other words, you don’t have the added pressure of proving yourself to anyone.)

4. It creates momentum with consistent wins. With every small action you complete, you experience a sense of accomplishment that boosts your confidence and simultaneously expands your comfort zone, making it progressively easier to take the next action and progress toward your goal.

(Shortform note: Robertson (The Winner Effect) offers a biological perspective on how consistent small wins aid progress. Successfully achieving something increases your testosterone levels, creating both immediate and long-term effects: It boosts your confidence and willingness to take risks in the short term and, with repeated successes over time, it accumulates in your bloodstream to reinforce these traits. It follows that the more small wins you accumulate, the more testosterone builds up in your bloodstream, increasing your confidence and desire to pursue more challenging opportunities.)

How to Implement Kaizen

Raymond suggests that you can implement kaizen and make continuous progress toward your goals by following a three-step process:

1. Identify the smallest possible step you can take to make progress. Make this action so simple that it feels almost trivial. For example, if your goal is to sell one of your upholstery projects, your first action might be to spend five minutes researching local craft fairs or to take a single photo of your finished work. (Shortform note: If small actions still feel overwhelming, Clear (Atomic Habits) provides practical advice for breaking a new activity into smaller steps: Use the two-minute rule. Instead of committing to an entire activity, commit to the first two minutes of it to get the ball rolling. After that, continue breaking down the activity into two-minute increments.)

2. Commit to taking at least one small action every day to build momentum. Consistency matters more than intensity—by habitually completing small actions, you’ll accumulate small wins that create noticeable progress over time.

(Shortform note: Raymond emphasizes how small actions compound to help achieve a specific goal. For example, over time, taking a daily photo of your work naturally evolves into uploading daily photos to an online portfolio. Taking this idea a step further, Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit) suggests that adopting a single positive habit can trigger a chain reaction that inspires a life-enhancing cycle of change. Focusing intently on one habit increases the likelihood of positive results, which motivates you to improve all your habits. For instance, committing to take daily photos—and finding you enjoy documenting your progress—might motivate you to develop better presentation skills and showcase your work more widely.)

3. Increase the scope of your actions as your comfort level expands. Attempt more complex or time-consuming tasks to keep your momentum going. For example, after photographing your work, you might create a simple social media post showcasing it, then later reach out to one potential venue.

(Shortform note: In Atomic Habits, Clear uses the concept of identity to clarify how regularly taking small actions expands your comfort level, helping you tackle more challenges. He notes that your actions reinforce your identity and vice versa. So, the more you act in a certain way, the more you start to believe that’s who you are. For example, if you act as if you’re already a successful artisan (by regularly showcasing your work), your actions will naturally make you start feeling like a successful artisan. This new identity will motivate you to step outside your comfort zone when creating and sharing your work because you’re a successful artisan, and that’s what successful artisans do.)

Use Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to Calm Your Fears

If you still feel apprehensive about taking small actions, consider trying EFT (otherwise known as “tapping”) to calm any psychological resistance. The process involves:

• Accepting that you feel uncomfortable emotions and calming your body’s response to them

• Understanding why certain things feel threatening

• Releasing your uncomfortable emotions

• Replacing your uncomfortable emotions with calm or positive ones

The first step of the process involves using your fingertips to tap on specific meridian (acupuncture) points on your face and body while you focus on the uncomfortable emotion you’re feeling and the situation it relates to. The process of tapping on these points sends signals to the part of your brain that’s responsible for triggering your psychological resistance.

When you tap on the points and focus on the uncomfortable situation, your brain automatically calms its resistance and associates this feeling of calm with the triggering situation. In other words, your brain no longer feels the need to resist when you think about this specific situation—so you’re able to think about it more calmly and objectively. Once you feel more objective, you continue to tap on your meridian points until you no longer feel any uncomfortable emotions around the issue.

Many EFT practitioners suggest that EFT is most effective when used in advance of a trigger—in this case, that means completing the process before attempting your small action. For example, if you’re afraid of showcasing your photographs, tapping through the points before you start work on your social media post will alleviate any resistance you feel to completing the task.