Wabi-Sabi for a “perfect” career
We spend the first half of our careers trying to build the perfect resume. We want the logos of prestigious companies. We want the linear climb up the ladder. We hide the gaps, the layoffs, and the failed projects. We polish everything until it shines.
There is a problem with this approach. It is exhausting, and it is not real.
The Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi offers a different path. It is a worldview that finds beauty in things that are imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. When you apply this philosophy to your leadership style and career growth, you stop trying to be a statue and start acting like a human.
Here is how to transform your career using the three pillars of Wabi-Sabi.
Principle 1: Embrace Impermanence (Nothing Lasts)
The modern career is not a straight line. It is a series of loops and pivots. The job you have today will not exist in ten years. The skills you use today will become obsolete.
Fighting this reality creates anxiety. Accepting it creates freedom.
The Guide to Owning Your Evolution:
Rewrite your bio. Look at your LinkedIn summary. Does it try to make your career look like a master plan? Change it. connect the dots by highlighting the changes. "I started in sales, which taught me empathy, and moved to engineering, which taught me structure."
Conduct a quarterly audit. Ask yourself a simple question every three months. "Am I still learning, or am I just comfortable?" If you are just comfortable, the decay has already started. You must seek new challenges before they are forced upon you.
Normalize the exit. When a team member leaves, do not treat it like a betrayal. Celebrate it as the next step in their journey. This builds a culture where people stay because they want to, not because they are afraid to leave.
Principle 2: Value Imperfection (Nothing is Perfect)
There is a Japanese art form called Kintsugi. When a tea bowl breaks, the artist does not throw it away. They repair the cracks with gold lacquer. The bowl becomes more beautiful and valuable because it has been broken.
Your career setbacks are not things to hide. They are your gold.
The Guide to the Kintsugi Resume:
Identify your scar. Think of the worst thing that happened in your career. Was it a firing? A bankrupt startup? A project that lost money?
Mine the gold. Write down three things you learned from that specific failure that you could not have learned from a success.
Tell the story. The next time you are in an interview or a pitch meeting, do not hide the failure. Lead with it. Say something like this. "The project failed, but here is how that failure changed the way I manage risk today." This displays confidence that perfectionism cannot match.
Principle 3: Accept Incompleteness (Nothing is Finished)
Perfectionism tells you that you cannot launch the product until it is flawless. It tells you that you cannot apply for the promotion until you check every single box.
Wabi-Sabi teaches us that nothing is ever truly finished. We are all works in progress.
The Guide to Operating in "Flow Mode":
The 80% Rule. Commit to launching your work when it is 80% ready. The final 20% of effort often takes as much time as the first 80%, and the market feedback you get from launching early is worth more than your internal polishing.
Admit ignorance. In your next team meeting, if you do not know the answer, say "I do not know." Follow it up with "But I will find out." Leaders who pretend to know everything destroy trust. Leaders who admit they are still learning build loyalty.
Set "Learning Goals" alongside "Performance Goals." Most companies only measure output. You should also measure input. Set a goal to learn a completely new tool or concept this quarter, even if you will be bad at it initially.
Conclusion
The goal of your career is not to reach a state of flawless invincibility. The goal is to become resilient, authentic, and wise.
Stop trying to fix the cracks in your wall. That is where the light gets in. That is where your story begins.
