The Ikigai Exercise · Free
Your purpose isn't a quiz result. Work it out.
Write what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for. Three candidate sentences are built only from your words. You choose one and edit it.
Free. No account to begin. About 20 minutes. A free account shows your statements.
Why the usual answers stall.
Each one hands you something finished, and none of them starts from what you would write.
A quiz that ends at a label
A few questions, then a type or a job title. It gives you a name to hold and no next step.
Four circles, an empty middle
The diagram is a useful map. Staring at a blank one gives you nowhere to start; it needs your own words in each circle first.
Advice written for everyone
Follow your passion. Do what you love. Lines like these fit anyone, which is why they fit nobody in particular.
Three steps. The first needs no account.
About twenty minutes for the first step, and you can stop between any of the four quadrants.
Write
Five or more entries in each of four quadrants, typed by you. Stuck? Each quadrant has questions to write from; nothing is filled in for you.
Choose
Create a free account to see three candidate Calling Statements, built only from what you wrote. Choose one and edit it. Your edit is final.
Begin
Next, the Omzoe Mirror: 72 statements, about nine minutes. Then your Compass Reading and a first 32-day aim, ready to begin.
Every word that matters is one you wrote.
A Calling Statement is shown to you only if every word that carries meaning in it appears, in some form, in your own entries. A sentence that borrows a word you never wrote is rejected and written again before you see it.
With an account, the Omzoe Assistant can ask you questions as you write. An entry it proposes has to quote what you typed, word for word, or it is refused. Nothing goes into a quadrant unless you add it.
Cooks old recipes for a full table, and teaches young people who never learned to cook to make a little go a long way.
Tap or tab to a phrase to see which entries it came from.
What you love
- cooking for a full table
- old recipes from my nan
What you are good at
- making a little go a long way
- explaining things without making people feel slow
What the world needs
- people eating alone too often
- young people who never learned to cook
What you can be paid for
- catering a friend's wedding, once
- teaching a cookery evening at the community centre
“Cooks old recipes” came from “cooking for a full table” (What you love), “old recipes from my nan” (What you love).
What you leave with.
Your calling
One sentence, chosen from three candidates and edited by you.
How you operate
From the Omzoe Mirror: tendencies, described as positions on a spectrum. No type.
The gap
Where your calling and how you operate pull apart, and what that costs you.
What first
In your Compass Reading: a path of 32-day aims, the first one ready to begin.
Free. No account to begin. About 20 minutes. A free account shows your statements.
Before you start
- Is this a career test or a personality quiz?
- No. It is a self-reflection exercise, not an assessment: nothing is scored, and no type or job title comes out of it. You write four lists, and three candidate sentences are built from them. Each one says what you do and for whom. Read them against what you wrote.
- Will an AI decide what my life is for?
- No. A model drafts three candidates, and one is shown only if every word that carries meaning in it appears in your entries. You choose one and edit it as much as you like; your edit is final. With an account, the Omzoe Assistant can ask you questions, and it proposes only from what you wrote.
- Do I need an account, or to pay?
- Not to begin: you can write all four quadrants with no account. To see your three Calling Statements, and later your Compass Reading, you create a free account, and what you have written comes with you. The Compass is free: the Ikigai Exercise, the Omzoe Mirror, your Reading and your Aim Path.
- What happens to what I write?
- Never sold or shared, and Omzoe never trains a model on it. On the free plan, the AI providers writing your statements and Reading may use what they are sent to improve their models; a paid Omzoe plan uses only tiers that never do. Without an account, it is tied only to this browser and deleted seven days after you start.
- How long does it take?
- About twenty minutes for the four quadrants, and you can stop between any of them. The Omzoe Mirror, which comes next, is 72 statements and about nine minutes. The Mirror is a self-reflection instrument, not a validated psychometric.
- What if I don't know what to write?
- Start small; nothing here has to be impressive. Each quadrant has a few questions to write from, such as "What have you been thanked for more than once?" They are questions, not answers, and nothing is filled in for you. Five entries in each quadrant is enough to see where they meet.
Not ready to write yet?
Two pieces from the Reading Room, free to read: why a calling is not a job title, and what ikigai means apart from the four circles.
Not found on a result screen. Worked out in your own words.
Four quadrants, five entries in each, about twenty minutes. Then three candidate sentences built only from what you wrote, and the one you choose and edit is yours.
Free. No account to begin. About 20 minutes. A free account shows your statements.