Hello, this is Healing Santa, Kim Ji-yu.
At last, the personal homepage that I, a complete beginner, made with the help of Claude is nearly finished, and I am so happy. Please take a look around.
www.punolchi.com
After the life of noticing while awake, accepting as I am, taking responsibility as the owner of my life, and self-assertiveness that shares good influence for the good of the community, today we set out on a mind journey with the fifth pillar, “the practice of living purposefully.”
And as in the last essay, I ask myself and answer:
“In 2026, how am I, Healing Santa, conveying a purposeful life to the world?”
How is my wish to work together for a healthy and beautiful world being used, after 30 years, to benefit the world? Whom does the purposeful life I share help, and how?
1. Nathaniel Branden's “The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem”
Nathaniel Branden, the American psychologist often called the father of self-esteem, believed that self-esteem does not arise by itself but is built on what we practice and do every day. So he named those practices “the six pillars of self-esteem.”
The six pillars of self-esteem
1. The practice of living consciously / 2. The practice of self-acceptance / 3. The practice of self-responsibility / 4. The practice of self-assertiveness / 5. The practice of living purposefully / 6. The practice of personal integrity
Deciding in which direction the awake me (1), the me who embraces myself (2), the me who takes responsibility for my life (3) and the me who speaks as myself (4) will now walk — that is the fifth pillar.
2. The fifth pillar: the practice of living purposefully
Branden described living purposefully like this:
“Taking responsibility for finding and setting my own goals, taking the actions that achieve them, and keeping on along that path without wavering.”
In February 2019 I wrote this on my blog:
The power that keeps us from tiring, that helps us get up when we fall and keep going to the end, comes from the dreams and goals we truly want. What breathes vitality into tired cells is practicing a purposeful life toward a vivid dream.
And at that time I also wrote down my life's purpose:
“The purpose of my life is to help people heal body and mind and live a healthy everyday life when they eat their daily food.”
Seven years later this sentence has not changed. If anything, it has grown firmer through the psychology on the dining table, the 5-minute PuNolChi Mind Table.
Goals that are simple, immediate, specific and true. In reality therapy, when setting goals for the life you want, you are told to make them simple, immediate, specific and honest — not “I'll get healthy,” but “four days a week, I'll walk briskly in the park for 20 minutes morning and evening.”
Visible productivity and invisible productivity. There is visible productivity, like the money we earn today, but there is also productivity that helps us grow even if it isn't visible right away, like studying to develop ourselves for the future.
Branden said that, as long as it doesn't go against life, what matters more than what work we do is the attitude of using our abilities actively in the work we have chosen. A purposeful person keeps checking with awake eyes whether what they are doing now connects with their goals. So the fifth pillar meets the first pillar, living consciously, once again.
3. Healing Santa's 2026: a diary of living purposefully
Tuesday 6 a.m., a time for building up one person. This morning, too, at 6 a.m. I met CEO Kim Yong-bok, who is walking the path of a food expression counseling specialist. It is now the second year since we began studying together in the PuNolChi top leaders' course, and he is working as a PuNolChi positive coaching instructor.
Every Tuesday at 6 a.m., in training for nearly two years — and now he is giving his first lecture at a university. I am so grateful that the goal I set last year has come true.
I hope that, through Dr. Choi Chi-young's wealth-thinking program, there will be more good rich people who share good influence and more professional wealth-coaching instructors in the world.
Go for it, Dr. Kim Yong-bok! Apart and together: for each person I draw a circle of influence. When I do a PuNolChi class with someone, we set goals for that person together, and I draw a circle of influence around them, imagining how they will spread good influence. Once one person's center is set, that circle spreads to their family and neighbors.
I shared my purpose in the field: a dementia-prevention lecture with elders in their 90s at Dapsimni Catholic Church, PuNolChi positive coaching with elementary school children in Hongseong, and healing-experience volunteering at Volunteeum in Yeouido Hangang Park — I met people carrying “PuNolChi that feeds on health and happiness.”
At the height of the summer heat, I met autumn in Düsseldorf, Germany
From the dining table to the world. The people I met in Düsseldorf told me, “Whenever we are ready, we'll be ready to help.” Even after I came back, wherever I went there were email replies waiting, and I was grateful.
Back from the Jinju international forum, slicing the pumpkin my mother grew, I made three resolutions. One, to keep PuNolChi as five minutes of daily mind care, a healing art of life. Two, to root the psychology on the dining table firmly in Korea first. Three, to go out from the dining table to the world on the basis of research and records.
And only as much as I can. Today again I do what I can do. Making joyful days of loving with love, I try always to do only as much as I can, because a purposeful life is not running beyond our strength, but walking steadily without losing direction.
4. Living purposefully meets the 2027 trends
The boredom society: a busy age in which meaning is hard to find. Trend Korea 2027 named as next year's starting point a boredom in which there is plenty to do, but truly meaningful and rewarding work is hard to find. Isn't it not more stimulation but the purpose of “What am I living for?” that is the power to overcome this boredom?
The try-it economy: purpose grows through small actions. They say a trend is coming of trying first and fixing as we go rather than perfect preparation. Trying one simple, immediate, specific and true goal today — that is the “try-it” of a purposeful life.
Vibe working: it is people who set the direction. They say that the more AI helps us with our work, the more important it becomes for people to coordinate the flow and set the direction. I, too, get help from AI to organize the world's news every morning, but the purpose — “for what” — is always mine to decide.
Half signal: the purpose of the second half. Like the trend of rereading menopause as a half-time to prepare for the second half of life, setting a new purpose for the second half at life's turning point is the most exciting homework for me too, having passed my 60th birthday.
Life ROI: the real return is meaning. They call this an age of calculating the return on every investment, but invisible productivity — like the joy of seeing one person stand firm, or the reward of making someone smile — is the greatest return a purposeful life gives.
Alpha Sheep: the sheep that walks its chosen path first. To be not a sheep following the herd but the first sheep that moves by its own thinking, I need a purpose — to know where I am going.
5. A flourishing life with five pillars
Professor Martin Seligman of positive psychology named positive emotion, engagement, good relationships, meaning and accomplishment as the conditions of a flourishing life that blooms like a flower. Of these, meaning and accomplishment touch directly on living purposefully.
Noticing while awake (living consciously), accepting as I am (self-acceptance), taking responsibility for my life (self-responsibility), raising a voice of my own that helps the world (self-assertiveness), and gathering all of it to walk in one direction (living purposefully)
Apart and together, I hope we become people who share good influence, as much as we can, each from where we stand.
Today's 5-minute purpose practice: Place one ingredient symbolizing “me” in the middle of a plate, and arrange small ingredients in a circle around it for the people you want to influence. Your own circle of influence is complete. Then write down one simple, immediate, specific and true goal: “This week, for ___, I will ___.”
Closing
Tell your 2026 self, “Thank you for keeping your center and moving forward steadily and slowly,” and cheer on your 2027 self: “As much as you can, one step at a time.”
In the next story I will come back with the sixth pillar, “personal integrity: when words and life become one.”
In 2026, what purpose did you carry as you walked? And in 2027, for whom would you like to take a step? Let's cheer on each other's dreams together.
Healing Santa Kim Ji-yu
References: Nathaniel Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, and writings on his official website; press coverage of Trend Korea 2027 by Kim Nan-do et al.; Healing Santa's blog post “Santa Grandma Ji-yu on self-esteem 6: on living purposefully” (2019); the 2026 activity records of the healing space Haengbok Yeolgi cafe
This story was first posted in the PuNolChi Mind Journey healing writing of the healing space Haengbok Yeolgi cafe.