Soul Calling or Soul Purpose: What is the difference?

There’s a lot to wade through on the way to discovering your Soul Calling. How do you find your Soul Calling? How will you know when you’ve found it? What does it take to live it? And perhaps biggest of all, what is the difference between your Soul Calling and your Soul Purpose?  

Before we can answer this question it’s important to explore the correlation between the two – a Soul Calling and a Soul Purpose. What do they have in common? You guessed it, the Soul. Specifically, your Soul. This is the element of consistency we are working with, so let’s talk about your Soul for a moment. 

What is a Soul? It is the indelible life force that enlivens us. It is the internal, eternal part of you that cannot be destroyed. (It can be covered over though.) It’s what makes you the one and only you. There is a specificity to the frequency of your Soul. Only you were born to hold that frequency – for yourself and for your fellow travelers and for the planet. This frequency emanates a unique energetic soul signature. It is the embodiment of your Soul in this way that fulfills your Soul Purpose here on earth. 

Being as this unique frequency is created with the inception of your Soul (and that is your purpose), this means your purpose never changes. You have only one Soul. Therefore, you have only one Soul Purpose. It turns out that everyone in essence has the same purpose: the embodiment of your unique frequency and the mastery of your Soul. This means that your purpose is not what you do; it’s who you be. 

Additionally, your purpose is not tied to any one particular form of expression, action, or population. Therefore, if you’ve been thinking your purpose for example is “to empower women,” we don’t yet have the full picture. There’s more under that. But we know that in order to make a difference in the world, action will need to be taken at some point. So where does being meet doing? 

This is where your Soul Calling comes in. Different from Soul Purpose, your Soul Calling covers anything you are “called” to do in alignment with your purpose at any given moment. This covers all the ways you are called to express that purpose in any given period of time. As you grow in your Soul Mastery – the ultimate goal of your Soul – you may be called to more or different aspects of your purpose. This means that while your Soul Purpose never changes, your Soul Calling can and most likely will. 

It’s easy to see how much harder it is likely to be to find your Soul Calling if we are operating under these common misconceptions of the difference between Soul Purpose and Soul Calling. This means that even when we feel we know our purpose, we can still struggle with our Soul Calling.

How to find your Soul Calling

When you are waiting for your Soul Calling to reveal itself, it can feel elusive, even mythical. If you’ve been waiting long enough it can be easy to give up. To resign yourself to daily life. You might even begin to wonder…”Do I even have a Soul Calling?”

Before we can make the difference we were born to, we need to know how to find your Soul Calling. Our motivation to find our Soul Calling is based in a desire to make a difference in the world, to create an impact for those we share the world with. This is no small objective. And it’s not something to give up on.

Many have described their Soul Calling as a tap or a whisper. Others as a bang or a “two-by-four.” In practice, we’ve found it to be more commonly a combination. Subtle hints, followed by a slow burn that either flames out or turns into a bonfire sometimes following a (metaphorical) explosion of some sort. This can be an experience that lasts a lifetime. Potentially risking never fulfilling the call of your Soul.

We can’t have that happen! So, here’s a few important steps for how to find your Soul Calling:

Get still and get silent: Considering that so many describe how to find your Soul Calling as a whisper, we’ve got to get quiet enough to hear that still small voice that’s trying to guide us. The world is generally so noisy that it can be hard to distinguish between our thoughts and someone else’s. Until you can quiet the other voices, it’s too easy to fall into societal norms and expectations. 

Cultivate a centering practice: A centering practice can take many forms. For some this could be a dedicated meditation practice or a moving meditation such as Yoga or Tai-Chi. Other less obvious centering practices can include forms of journaling or “morning pages.” Even the lost art of contemplation can have an extremely centering effect. Point being, any practice that removes you from the external referencing of the world outside and returns you to the internal sourcing of your own experience is a centering practice.

Discover who you really are: It seems bold to say that most of us don’t actually know who we are. We know who we’ve been trained to be; who we’ve been told to be; who we’ve become and who we are in the habit of being. Those things can have little if anything to do with who we are. Knowing yourself at soul level is paramount to hearing the call of your soul.

Let your Soul lead the Way: It’s been said that you can’t be course corrected unless you are in motion. At the same time, action for the sake of action is motion but it may not be movement. Learning to distinguish the pulls of the personality and wait for the prompts of your Soul can be frustrating. But better to be patient than get too far down the wrong path and have to waste time backtracking.

Find a Guide: In every hero’s journey there is a wise man or wise woman who comes along to support the hero on their quest. So why is it we’ve come to believe we have to do it on our own. It rarely if ever happens that way. The right guide can ensure you safe passage on your journey and help you chart your course, eliminating obstacles and reducing travel time. 

How to tell if you are following your Soul Calling

It’s not necessarily obvious from the outside if you are following your Soul Calling. In the end only you will know. However, to be certain we are following the calling of our Soul, we must first be sure it’s our Soul we are listening to. Labeling something a Soul Calling doesn’t make it one. Many personality drivers have masqueraded as Soul Calling.

Therefore it is very useful to begin to delineate between your personality and your Soul. What motivates your personality (often referred to as ego) is quite different from what motivates your Soul. While your Soul is moved by internal fulfillment through specific energetic experiences, your personality is placated by external fulfillment through achievement, acquisition and accomplishment. Basically anything that can be measured on the outside is at risk of being driven by your personality. 

When you are truly following a Soul Calling, the impact of your calling will be more important to you than your name being associated with the results. One great example of this is Jess Weiner. While you probably don’t know her name you’ll definitely recognize the impact of her calling in what some refer to as “gender justice.” I first came across Jess in the early days of her work with girl’s empowerment back in 2008. 

Jess’ Soul Calling has had a hand in the famous Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” which was a launch pad for ongoing conversations (not to mention workshops, appearances and consulting on other advertising campaigns) around the beauty of every woman’s physical appearance. 

Disney called on her expertise as they began the era of “princess empowerment” that has elevated girls to the role of hero in more and more of their feature films. Not to mention her involvement in Mattel offering Barbie dolls in more diverse body shapes. 

Jess has truly followed her Soul Calling and made a massive difference in the world. You knowing her name is irrelevant to her. While at this point she is the head of a very successful consulting company, she was never in it for the money. There’s another clue for you. 

While you can certainly make a great living following your Soul Calling, it won’t (and can’t be) your primary motivator. The old adage “do what you love and the money will follow” comes to mind here. The trick is not to be tricked by your personality along the way.

Another tell-tale sign of a Soul Calling is that it will consume you – in a good way. While others may be concerned with work-life balance, when you are following a Soul Calling, chances are there will be an imbalance. At least for some period of the time. For example, during the birthing process of Divine Navigation, I rarely thought of anything else. I was learning so much as the Divine Coordinates revealed themselves to me, I frankly wasn’t concerned with much else. 

When you are truly following your Soul’s Calling, it will provide the inspiration and the fuel for what needs to be done. You’ll do it all for the love of it. And you will be provided for one way or another.

What a SoulCalling is NOT

If you aren’t yet having the experiences that confirm you are following your Soul Calling, it can be helpful to have an understanding of what a Soul Calling is not. This way you don’t have to get distracted or stalled out on the way. 

A Soul Calling is not:

• Figure-out-able: “Figuring it out” is a  mental exercise. A Soul Calling can’t be accessed through the mind. As the name indicates, this special information is only available through being connected to your Soul.
  
  
• Logical: When considering a change in vocation or avocation, most will consider what they’ve already done or know how to do. Neither of these may be relevant when it comes to a Soul Calling. Don’t let that stop you from following your calling. Anything you need to know you can learn.
  
  
• Reasonable: By its nature a Soul Calling is going to be a bit “outside the box.” If you’re going to make an impact, it’s not going to be following the status quo or something you already know. 
  
  
• Convenient: Neither the timing nor the attention your Soul Calling will command is likely to fit neatly into your calendar. You may have other commitments and responsibilities in your life that take up a lot of your time. But your Soul Calling will inspire you to find a way to pursue it.
  
  
• Based on Size: Some would have you believe that all Soul Callings are big and grandiose. Not so. Size or scope does not determine or confirm a calling. Some of the most important callings in the world are those that only impact a handful of people. But consider, who might those people go on to impact? 
  
  
• A Destination: A Soul Calling is the epitome of “it’s a journey not a destination.” When you are following the call of your Soul, it will likely evolve and perhaps even grow over time. It’s best not to get too fixated on a specific destination.
  
  
  

When to know your soul calling 

As the time of when to know your Soul Calling approaches, you are likely to feel frustrated with life as you know it. While your life might look just fine or even great on the outside, you just know something is missing. A sense of “divine discontent,“ if you will.


It’s likely to come with a yearning to do more; to be more; to live more. The regular old stuff just isn’t satisfying in the way it used to be. You just can’t go through the motions anymore. 

When to know your Soul Calling isn’t determined by an age; it isn’t a date; it isn’t a circumstance. Some receive their calling at a young age. Even more at what one might call a mature age. We had one Divine Navigation client who became an energy healer in her eighties. It’s never too late!

But you can’t chase your calling. Ever tried to catch a dog by running after it? Usually the dog will keep running, maybe even faster than before! No, your Soul Calling is much more likely to sneak up to you when you are sitting still. When you are available but not aggressively pursuing it. 

Alignment with your Soul and a convergence of circumstance will lead you to when to know your Soul Calling. Are there things you can do in the meantime? You bet! Ask yourself at this moment “what am I called to do?” It doesn’t have to be a big step. A tiny step in the right direction is how every journey begins. 

Since 2011, courageous men and women around the world have chosen Divine Navigation and committed to the extraordinary and transformative experience of Aligning with their Soul-through their Divine Coordinates. We invite you to also explore the journey of Understanding Divine Alignment and It’s Life-Changing Benefits.