True Callings: Definition & How To Find Yours

By Angela Saulsbery, M.A.
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Have you wondered if you have a true calling? What is a calling, anyway? Discover the definition, how to find yours, and why it’s okay not to have one.
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Have you ever received career advice to “find your passion” or “follow your bliss” and felt even more confused? Have you felt that you were drifting through meaningless jobs just to pay the bills? Or have you pursued your passion, only to receive criticism that your field is “too competitive” or not a realistic choice? 
If so, read on–in this article, we’ll discuss the definition of a true calling, examples of a true calling, and how to identify and nurture your true calling. I’ll also explain why it’s okay (and even equally desirable) not to have a true calling. 
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What Is A True Calling? (A Definition)

A “true calling” is thought to be the work that you are “meant” to do or the work you’re optimally suited for. Duffy & Dik note components of an “external summons, sense of destiny, or perfect fit”; they also cite “prosocial motivation” as a frequent component of callings (reviewed in 2013, p. 429). “True calling” is synonymous with “passion” (as in “find your passion”) and with “dream” (as in “follow your dream”). Your true calling doesn’t have to be your job or career (hence stereotypes such as the waitress who longs to be an actress). Your true calling doesn’t have to be what you’re best at, but it’s generally a talent; it can show up at any life stage, but often makes itself known in childhood. 

Not everyone has a true calling or discovers theirs, yet it’s also possible to have two or more: As a possible example, see “Renaissance men” like Leonardo Da Vinci, who excelled in both painting and science. Last, a calling is not usually or wholly a choice: We don’t choose our callings; they find us and we decide whether to accept the call. Having a calling is associated with benefits such as life satisfaction and life meaning, particularly when people are following the call in their work (reviewed in Duffy & Dik, 2013).

Callings are not necessarily useful or positive–as an extreme example, dictators might feel called to accrue more and more power and land at average citizens’ expense. A true calling can also drive someone to persevere in unsuccessful work without considering alternatives (reviewed in Duffy & Dik, 2013). Even if a calling produces great art, science, or literature, it’s often characterized by an obsessive, haunting, or compulsive quality. You might not be able to give up a calling, even if you think you’d be happier or healthier without it; it might even seem (or actually be) worth many dangers and risks. (As an example, see the story of Joan of Arc, who answered a call to defend France and ultimately died for it.) 

A true calling can constrain free choice–it might drive you to shape your life around it the way a vine grows around a stake in the ground. Further, a calling is no guarantee of daily bliss–the work can still be difficult and tedious, interspersed with moments of flow, rapture, self-actualization, and mastery. As someone who feels called to writing and science, I can’t unreservedly recommend true callings; my callings have, however, made me resilient by motivating me to push through hard times. They’ve been a powerful, irresistible force that’s both healing and (on occasion) oppressive.

Examples of A True Calling

  • Personal example: A close friend feels driven to produce visual art. She instinctively picked up a drawing pad and pencil sometime in elementary school, has become progressively more skilled, and even studied art in college. She often talks about her dream of becoming an animator; however, her more “secure” day job has nothing to do with art. She often feels torn between her true calling and her need for financial security.
  • In the arts: Many writers likely consider(ed) or would consider writing their true calling. The writer Lorrie Moore said, “Only write if you have no choice” (quoted in Callender, 14 June 2017). Presumably, she feels she has no choice, as she continues to publish short story collections, novels, and even a children’s book.
  • In literature: Many stories follow the arc of the Hero’s Journey, which includes a call to adventure. One example is the legend of King Arthur, in which a young Arthur is called and fated to pull a sword out of a stone and become the King of England.
  • In history: Numerous historical figures have pursued power or justice at great risk to themselves. I mentioned Joan of Arc above; civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. are also possible examples. King considered himself “called” to religious ministry (King, 7 August 1959). 
  • In sports: It’s possible that extraordinary athletes like Simone Biles and Serena Williams feel called to perfect their sports. Their athletic careers contain many features of a true calling (as I defined it above): extreme talent, discovery in childhood, intense work, and persistence over time despite pain and danger (for example, injuries and the abuse that Simone Biles experienced at the hands of a sports doctor (discussed in Shabad, 15 September 2021).

How to Find Your True Calling

If you have a “true calling,” I believe you don’t need to find it: You probably already know what it is, even if you haven’t yet labeled it as a calling. To identify your calling, you can ask yourself these questions: 
  • What activities do you gravitate toward when you have downtime? 
  • What do you make time for no matter how busy you are? 
  • What interests do you consistently return to, even if you take long breaks or pursue other (perhaps more “practical”) goals? 
  • To what extent do you believe your life has been shaped by financial worries, family pressure, convention, or other external factors? If those concerns disappeared, what would you do? 
  • When you feel content, at peace, and confident, what are you doing? ​

Tips To Help You Explore Your True Calling in Life

If you know your calling and want to dive into it, but don’t know where to start, I provide several suggestions below. I am not suggesting that anyone should quit their day job and immediately devote all their time to a calling (unless you want to and have the necessary financial and social safety net). You can, however, ease into a calling–for example, by turning it into a side hustle before switching careers entirely or by keeping it as a hobby.

  1. Don’t be a perfectionist, but do set standards for yourself. Perfectionism may fuel procrastination (Smith et al., 2017)–so, if you hold yourself to inhumanely high standards, you might start to avoid activities that bring you meaning and joy. Instead, why not accept your current skill level and set specific goals for progress? For example, if you write, you can set yourself the goal of improving your dialogue or sentence structure.
  2. Find a mentor or critique group. The psychologist Lev Vygotsky theorized that we learn and grow with the help of “more knowledgeable others” who help us bridge the gap between what we can currently achieve alone and what we can potentially achieve with guidance (reviewed by Mcleod, 18 August 2022). If you want to master a calling, an expert who believes in you might be able to see potential and weaknesses that you can’t and guide you both creatively and professionally (if you want to pursue the calling professionally, that is).
  3. Submit or exhibit work. Sharing your work might give you confidence–hearing others’ opinions might help you learn to deal with criticism and/or counteract the Dunning-Kruger effect (by which highly competent people underestimate their skills in relation to others (reviewed in Dunning, 2011)). If you want to turn a calling into a living, sharing your work is a good step toward making money (which, ultimately, can translate into more time to pursue the work).
  4. Practice. No matter your talent level, practice is necessary for most of us to develop true mastery. Even for prodigies, practice is probably needed to fulfill one’s true potential and to experience the benefits of having a calling. 
  5. Find your voice. When I studied fiction writing in college, my professor asked what I was trying to accomplish in a particular (meandering and slow) short story. I said that I was trying to emulate Virginia Woolf, one of my favorite authors. He said, “But you’re not Virginia Woolf.” At first, I thought he meant that I didn’t have the talent to pull off the kind of short story I was trying to write, but he actually meant that I was better off writing like myself than imitating someone else’s style. Virginia Woolf herself wrote, “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters.” I learned that, when I wrote the way I thought I was “supposed to,” I felt like I was merely going through the motions; when I followed my instincts, I was happier while writing and happier with the results.
  6. Learn from the masters. Although I don’t suggest imitating anyone, you can learn from people you admire. If you’re a writer, you can study how other writers bring scenes to life or convey emotion. If you’re a scientist, you can observe how more senior scientists decide which experiments to perform and how they present their work to build interest. Then you can decide which strategies work for you (and how to use them to achieve your self-determined goals) without completely reinventing the wheel.

Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling

I don’t believe that everyone needs a true calling, nor do I think having one is universally desirable or beneficial. Although a calling can bring you joy and purpose, it can also feel oppressive. Passion and commitment to a line of work may also leave you vulnerable to exploitation–for example, being paid poorly because you love the work too much to simply leave for more money (reviewed in Duffy & Dik, 2013). By contrast, if you see a job as “just a job,” you might feel empowered to self-advocate for better pay and benefits. Both having and not having a true calling can be viewed as neutral traits, because each option comes with pros and cons, and neither is overall superior to the other.

In the video below, artist Emilie Wapnick discusses the advantages of being someone without a true calling, or a “multipotentialite.” These advantages include idea synthesis, rapid learning, and adaptability. She advises the audience to “embrace your inner wiring, whatever that may be,” whether you’re a “specialist” or a “multipotentialite.”

Video: Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling | Emilie Wapnick

True Calling Quiz

According to several quizzes that I found through Google, my true calling is “to become president,” “to share [my] wisdom through words,” “philosopher,” “you are meant to be a comedian,” “rock taster,” or, “striving to be creative.” Although these quizzes did capture my love of writing, thinking, and making jokes, and “rock taster” made me laugh, I doubt if a quiz can tell you your true calling–for one, the possible results are too limited for a question that could have as many answers as there are people. If, however, you’re looking for a springboard for introspection (or just a laugh), here are links to the quizzes I tried:


If you’re looking for a more career-oriented assessment, I like the U.S. Department of Labor-sponsored O*NET Interest Profiler. This assessment asks how you like (or think you would like) performing various tasks, then offers career recommendations sorted by required education. The site also flags some results as “best fit,” “great fit,” and/or “new job opportunities likely in the future.”

For example, when I took the assessment, my top interest areas were artistic, social, and investigative. Based on these interests, their relative strength, and the amount of education I’m willing to pursue, my top career recommendations included journalist, English professor, and clinical/counseling psychologist. For each recommended career, the site offers information on job outlook; average salary; necessary knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality traits; and links for further reading. Like the above, more frivolous quizzes, the career profiler can’t assign you a true calling, but it may help you identify careers that suit your skills, list of values, and interests.

Quotes on True Callings

My favorite quote about true callings comes from Diane Duane’s young adult novel series Young Wizards. The second book, Deep Wizardry, features a character who happens to be a great white shark. In justifying his carnivorous lifestyle to the protagonist, he says, “[...] it’s only wise to cause what you build to feel good when it does what it must to survive. My nerves are tuned to pain. That fact tells me beyond question what my job is” (Duane, 2003, p. 180). 

In other words, the activities that bring him the most joy (gruesome though they are) are his true calling, and the purpose of that joy is to point him toward his calling (or duty). This quote stuck in my mind and helped me shake the damaging belief that my favorite activities were mere distractions from what I was “supposed to” be doing. Here are several more quotes that I hope will inspire your thoughts about true callings:

  • “I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.” ― Annie Dillard
  • “The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “Your job is not just to do what your parents say, what your teachers say, what society says, but to figure out what your heart calling is and to be led by that.” ― Oprah Winfrey
  • “Love your calling with passion, it is the meaning of your life.” ― Auguste Rodin

Articles Related to True Callings

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:​​​

Books Related to True Callings​

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on True Callings

A true calling is not necessarily a choice–it’s innate talent coupled with a sometimes-obsessive passion that drives you to develop that talent throughout your life, even despite danger, pain, risk, and disappointments. It’s possible to have more than one calling or none at all. Although a true calling can lend meaning and purpose to your life, having none can provide more freedom, adaptability, creativity, and comfort. If you have a true calling (that doesn’t harm others), it’s okay to pursue it even if it seems like an insecure path or doesn’t fit others’ plans for you. 
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Given the pandemic and increasing economic and environmental instability, no career path is 100% safe or certain. To engage with your calling, you can set reasonable standards, find a mentor, learn from the masters, practice, find your voice, and share your work with others. However you choose to pursue your calling, or if you decide you don’t have one, I encourage you to live a life that (as much as possible) honors your strengths and aligns with your truest priorities.

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