🎒 AI MASTERCLASS 🎒

A longer form, actionable AI tip, trick or hack focused on wellbeing, productivity and self-growth that you can use right now!

Self Growth: The Simple AI + Ancient Ikigai Framework to Build a Life That Feels Like You.

“The Day the Robot Asked ‘Why?”

In 2024, a researcher asked an AI model, “What’s your purpose?”
The model paused and wrote: “To help humans find theirs.”

Whether this story was true or not, the idea still haunts me.

The idea has lodged in my cortex like a quiet bell and keeps ringing every time I use an LLM to help me with self grow and wellbeing.

Because I can see AI reflected back at me.

Call it a friendly haunting: the model echoes my doubts, I echo its clarity and together we orbit the same unspoken purpose. I’ve been shadowed by that line; AI on one shoulder, conscience on the other, both insisting I name what I’m here to do.

Haunting aside, if you’ve ever stared at your ceiling at 2am, wondering what the hell you’re doing with your life, you already know the pain.

The dull hum of directionless ambition.
The loop of achievement without alignment.

When I first stumbled into ikigai, the Japanese idea of “reason for being” it felt like a compass that finally stopped spinning. But then I realised, most of what the internet sells as ikigai is wrong.

The viral Venn diagram (what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, what you can be paid for) is a remix of Western career logic; not the real thing.

In Sloww’s Ikigai 2.0, Kyle Kowalski strips away the clichés and rebuilds it into something truer, more honest; purpose as a living system…

…one that evolves as you do.

Now, imagine combining that with AI.

Not as a digital life coach, but as a mirror for your mind.
An ever‑learning partner that can help you untangle what makes you feel alive.

That’s what we’re building today: Ikigai 2.0 meets Artificial Insight.

Before we build, let’s ground ourselves: why does this fusion matter now, in this era of distraction and burnout?

Why This Matters: The Global Purpose Recession

Di you know that most people would gladly trade part of their salary for more meaningful work.

Why? Because this decade’s epidemic is not just about anxiety, it’s also about aimlessness.

You are witnessing a quiet crisis of meaning, a disconnection between what you do and why you do it - the purpose gap. It’s a little like a collective identity reboot after a century of industrial success combined with spiritual starvation.

Below are three research-backed facts that illustrate how pervasive this “purpose gap” has become:

• Over 90 % of workers would trade income for meaning. A 2018 Harvard Business Review backed study found that more than 9 in 10 employees said they would accept lower lifetime earnings in exchange for work they considered more meaningful.
  

• Meaningfulness predicts mental health over time. In a longitudinal study of 431 individuals, higher “meaning in life” scores at Time 1 predicted lower general mental distress later, even when controlling for baseline symptoms.
  

• Financial hardship links to existential emptiness. In the development of the Meaning and Purpose Scales (MAPS), researchers observed that those facing economic adversity have higher “crisis of meaning” and lower meaningfulness scores.

Purpose, once found in faith or family, is now outsourced to productivity.

Each of these data points tells the same story, people are starving for meaning. The old metrics (salary, prestige, titles) no longer satisfy the inner hunger.

You now measure worth in metrics.
You chase goals without asking whether they belong to you.

And the thing is that I can amplify this trend, or reverse it.

Used carelessly, it feeds your comparison habits.
Used wisely, it can illuminate the patterns beneath them.

AI doesn’t get tired of your questions.
It doesn’t judge your contradictions.

It reflects your data back at you, pattern by pattern, until you see the truth you’ve been avoiding.

It’s not soullessness.

It’s self‑study at scale.

So before we use AI to find purpose, let’s unpack the real meaning of ikigai, minus the memes.

And look at how we can move from symptom to design?

🚨 Disclaimer 🚨

Well Wired shares ideas to help you think, grow, and experiment, not to diagnose or treat. The content here is not a substitute for professional mental health, nutrition or medical advice. If you're facing serious health challenges or addiction issues, please seek support from a qualified professional. Your brain and body health is priority one. Take care of you.

Let's d-d-d-d-dive in! 🤿

What You’ll Learn Today 🧭✨

Here is what you will learn and apply by the end of this read.

✅ The real science and spirit behind ikigai 2.0, not the Instagram version.
✅ How to build a daily purpose feedback loop using AI reflection tools.
✅ Three AI prompts that turn confusion into clarity.
✅ The top AI tools already helping people map their meaning.
✅ How to turn purpose into a practice, not a personality test.

What Ikigai Really Is…

Ikigai isn’t a goal.

It’s a rhythm.
It’s a frequency you attune to.

In Japanese culture, it means the gentle fulfillment that arises when your daily acts resonate with your deeper self. It is the quiet satisfaction of aligning with life’s pulse; doing what feels meaningful.

It isn’t about grand vocations or dramatic transformation, it lives in the small.

It could be your morning walk.
Teaching your child to ride a bike.

Or finally writing that essay that’s been haunting your Notes app.

The Western remix made it a formula for career optimisation.

But in Ikigai 2.0, Kowalski challenges the classical four-circle model as a Western appropriation. He recasts purpose in three interwoven layers: being, doing, and becoming.

Purpose, in this frame, is less about finding the perfect job and more about noticing when you light up, and doing more of that.

It’s “observing what makes you lose track of time.”

It’s a daily compass calibrated through self‑reflection.

This view dissolves the pressure of “achieving purpose.” It becomes a practice: noticing, testing, refining. The daily coffee, the heart-based side project, the conversation that kindles joy; these are the data points of meaning.

This is where AI can help, not to decide for you, but to detect you.

Through journaling models, conversational reflection and pattern recognition, AI can spot emotional trends long before you consciously do.

AI can mine your emotional history, spot repeating themes and help you ask better questions to yourself.

Your attention is data.
Your data is a diary.

When analysed with intent, it becomes a mirror.

But how do you turn this philosophy into a process?

How do you use AI to map your purpose like a system?

How It Works: The IkigAI Framework

Here’s a flexible, actionable flow you can follow to mentor purpose with AI:

✅ 1. Collect Your Signals

Record moments when you feel energised or depleted. This can be via written journal, voice note, or mood-tracking app.

The aim is awareness, not metrics.

✅ 2. Summarise Patterns

Feed snippets into an AI model (like ChatGPT or Notion AI). Ask: “Which themes recur? Where’s the emotional tension?” Over time, these summaries become your emotional fingerprint.

✅ 3. Generate Micro-Experiments

Based on detected patterns, ask AI for small projects or habits to test resonance (e.g. writing three lines each day, hosting a small talk, volunteering, etc.).

✅ 4. Rate Resonance, Not Output

Each day or week, rate how alive or languid you feel. Use 1–5 scales or emoji scores. Let AI visualise how resonance correlates with themes.

✅ 5. Iterate the Loop

Feed your outcomes back into the system. Ask AI to adjust the next experiment or question your assumptions. Purpose is living; it must evolve with you.

This yields a loop: Notice → Analyse → Try → Reflect → Adjust. With time, you see trajectories in your own becoming.

To make it easier, here are three copy-paste prompts you can use right away; they chain together from awareness to design.

Sponsored Post

And now for a little something from Superhuman.

Become the go-to AI expert in 30 days

AI keeps coming up at work, but you still don't get it?

That's exactly why 1M+ professionals working at Google, Meta, and OpenAI read Superhuman AI daily.

Here's what you get:

• Daily AI news that matters for your career - Filtered from 1000s of sources so you know what affects your industry.

• Step-by-step tutorials you can use immediately - Real prompts and workflows that solve actual business problems.

• New AI tools tested and reviewed - We try everything to deliver tools that drive real results.

• All in just 3 minutes a day

Join 1M+ pros

Here’s a visual snapshot of the ‘The IkigAI Framework’:

PROMPT CORNER: Crafting Your Purpose Dialogue

These prompts act like gentle koans.

They scaffold your journey from observing your inner landscape toward prototyping alignment.

Use them in sequence over weeks.

Prompt 1: Clarity Compass

Purpose: Surface your emotional patterns.

[Start prompt]

You are a compassionate reflective guide helping me attune to my emotional landscape.
From my journal entries over the past week, identify:

3 moments when I felt most alive
3 moments when I felt most drained

For each, describe the emotional tone, context, and behaviours involved. Then, distill any recurring patterns you observe — emotionally, situationally, and behaviourally — and reflect on what these may suggest about where my energy aligns or depletes.

[End prompt]

Prompt 2: Resonance Map

Purpose: Distill themes from your patterns.

[Start prompt]

You are a reflective synthesis guide.
Drawing from the insights in my Clarity Compass, identify 4–5 core themes — such as values, emotional motifs, or recurring patterns — that appear to resonate with my energy.
For each theme, suggest one small, meaningful habit or micro-action I can experiment with this week to explore alignment in daily life. 

[End prompt]

Prompt 3: Purpose Prototype

Purpose: Design your next meaningful test.

[Start prompt]

You are a purpose design partner.
Based on the themes in my Resonance Map, propose 2–3 meaningful micro-projects I can test over the next 2–4 weeks.

For each micro-project, include:
A brief description and intention
1–2 reflection prompts to guide weekly journaling
Suggested resonance metrics (e.g., 1–5 scale and a space for qualitative notes) to help me track alignment and energy
Ensure each project feels lightweight, intrinsically motivated, and open to iteration.

[End prompt]

Closing Thoughts

These prompts flow: prompt 1 surfaces themes, prompt 2 names them and suggests habits, prompt 3 converts them into lived experiments.

Next, see tools that already combine journaling, AI and purpose tracking, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Recommended AI Tools & Resources 🧰

MindMirror.ai

What it does: AI-mediated journaling that reads your emotional signals.
Best for: People who already journal and want insight without extra effort.
Key features:

• Sentiment tracking

• Weekly emotional summaries

• Prompted reflection questions

Cost: Freemium tier with paid upgrades
How to use: Log entries daily; let it visualise your emotional arcs.

Reclaim.ai

What it does: Schedules around your energy cycles.
Best for: People juggling tasks but wanting creative flow time.
Key features:

• Syncs with calendar

• Learns your productive hours

• Blocks deep-focus zones

Cost: Subscription (~$10/month)
How to use: Use it for a baseline week; let it propose your optimal rhythm.

It organises your life so your brain can reboot itself.

Notion AI

What it does: Turns scattered notes into pattern maps.
Best for: Those who love flexibility and control.
Key features:

• Semantic summarisation

• Auto tagging emotional states

• Mission statement assistance

Cost: Included in Notion Pro
How to use: Feed it your weekly logs or prompt summaries; query your emotional archives. It’s your analog journal with pattern recognition built in.

Wrap up: Today’s Takeaways…

✅ Ikigai is not a career puzzle, it’s a living rhythm of alignment.

✅ Purpose is not discovered once, it is debugged, iterated, and refined.

✅ AI isn’t the answer, it’s a mirror for your inner patterns.

✅ Meaning is a feedback loop: notice → experiment → reflect → adjust.

✅ The prompts above help you convert insight into action.

✅ Use resonance (how alive you feel) instead of productivity metrics.

The point of technology isn’t to make life easier.

It’s to make awareness harder to avoid.

Let me close with a reflection on manoeuvring meaning in an age of automation.

Final Thoughts: Design > Discovery

For too long, we’ve chased purpose as if it’s a buried treasure. The new path is to craft purpose, bit by bit, question by question.

Old way: hunt for direction.
New way: debug your day.

Each journal entry, prompt response and experiment isn’t small. It’s a commitment to your inner source code of becoming.

The world doesn’t demand you to be perfect.
It asks you to be curious.

To test.
To listen.

Ikigai 2.0 teaches that life’s meaning isn’t final, it’s tuneable. AI doesn’t hand you meaning, it reflects your inner architecture back to you.

And when you tune in long enough, you begin to hear the quiet lines your conscious data showing you the path…

So the real question is not “What is my purpose?”, it is “How will I calibrate alignment today?”

Your mission, if you choose to align it… 🎯

The old way: chase a “perfect purpose,” bounce between apps, feel hollow.
The new way: let Ikigai guide one small, honest change with AI as a mirror, not a master.

→ Notice one moment that energised you this week. Name the feeling.
→ Ask why it mattered. Which value did it serve?
→ Run a 7-day micro-pilot that honours that value (10–15 minutes daily).
→ Log resonance, not output (1–5 aliveness score + one sentence).
→ Review with AI on day 7: “What patterns increased my energy?”
→ Iterate: keep what lifted you, trim what dulled you, design next week.

You don’t need a life overhaul.

You need a repeatable rhythm: notice → act → reflect → adjust.

Use AI to clarify your ikigai; a career and life that feel true, not just efficient.

The shift begins now. 🌱

Next week, we’ll dig into The Inner Game of Work, how to train the mindset behind your mission, not just your mission itself.

👊🏽 STAY WELL 👊🏽

If this helped you feel clearer about using AI to align work with who you are, say hello at @cedricchenefront or @wellwireddaily.

We’re building a space where thoughtful systems meet smart tools, so AI serves your values and your nervous system.

Until then as always, stay well and wired 🌱

With clarity,
Cedric the AI Monk - Your guide to the silicon jungle!

Ps. Well Wired is Created by Humans, Constructed With AI. 🤖 

🤣 AI MEME OF THE DAY 🤣