Last updated on December 29, 2025
Have you ever felt something stirring that you can’t quite explain? It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic. It’s just there—lingering in the background of your life like a thought you keep forgetting to finish.
It shows up when the noise quiets down. When you’re washing your face at night or driving a familiar road. When you scroll past something that tugs at your chest. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t come with a to-do list. But it’s real—and it’s asking for your attention.
I call it a calling. Not in the big, booming “life purpose” way people like to package it, but more like a pull. A spark. Something wanting to be seen or made or said or finally followed. It doesn’t always make sense. It doesn’t always come with clarity. But it’s yours. And I think that matters more than we’ve been taught to believe.
We tend to associate callings with extraordinary people. The trailblazers. The loud ones. The ones who got picked. But what if it isn’t about being chosen? What if it’s about choosing to listen?
That stirring inside you doesn’t come with fanfare. There’s no certificate. No guaranteed outcome. But it’s real. I’ve felt it in my own life again and again—when I started over after cancer, when I left the safety of a career that no longer fit, when I sat down to write words that scared me, when I built a business from the ground up that I couldn’t stop imagining even though I didn’t know how it would work. Every single time, the calling came first. Not the plan. Not the confidence. Just the tug.
I don’t think we talk enough about the doubt that comes with a calling. It’s not all clarity and fire. It’s questions. It’s vulnerability. It’s that sneaky voice that shows up in the middle of a really good idea and says, “Who do you think you are?”
And because we’ve been trained to avoid discomfort, we mistake the calling for anxiety. Or we mistake the doubt for a sign to stop. But what if it’s neither? What if that combination of curiosity and fear is just proof that you’re brushing up against something that actually matters to you?
One of the sneakiest traps we fall into is waiting for permission. Permission to be ready. Permission to be credible. Permission to matter. But the kind of callings I’m talking about don’t come with external approval. They come from within. And they are relentless in the most tender way.
A client once told me she kept feeling this urge to create something, but every time she got close, she’d shut down. Not because she didn’t care, but because she cared too much. She was afraid of looking silly. Afraid of starting too late. Afraid of being invisible or worse—misunderstood. So she stuffed it back down and told herself it was just a phase.
It wasn’t.
That pull stayed with her. It visited her in quiet moments. It made her tear up when she heard someone else express something she hadn’t dared to say out loud. It wrapped around her like warmth and grief all at once.
Eventually, she stopped fighting it. She didn’t need a new job or a new degree or a big public reveal. She just needed to admit it mattered. And once she did, she changed—not overnight, not perfectly, but undeniably.
I think we all have some version of that story. Something we’re drawn to. Something that’s been patiently waiting for us to stop pretending we don’t hear it. It could be a creative pursuit. A conversation you keep thinking about. A way of living that keeps tapping you on the shoulder.
It could be small. It probably will be.
But it doesn’t have to be loud to be powerful.
The world will always offer distractions. Always offer comparisons. Always offer a thousand other people who look like they’re doing it better, faster, with more ease. That doesn’t cancel out your pull. It just asks you to anchor into it more deeply.
This isn’t a call to reinvent your life in one giant leap. It’s not about throwing everything away and starting over. In fact, most callings don’t work that way. They want to work with your life, not against it. They want to be integrated, not isolated. They want to show you what’s possible without demanding that you burn everything down to begin.
If you’ve been feeling something lately—something that doesn’t go away no matter how much you try to logic your way out of it—I invite you to get curious. Not to act right away. Not to turn it into a hustle. But to sit with it. Ask it questions. Let it tell you something about yourself that you may have forgotten.
Let it show you the part of you that still believes. The part that still hopes. The part that’s not done growing.
That’s the calling.
It doesn’t always come with a plan. But it does come with a kind of power you can’t manufacture with productivity or pressure. It’s something else entirely.
Something worth listening to.
Be Well,
Leslie
About the Author
Leslie Nance is a Holistic Cancer Coach, Certified Holistic Nutritionist, speaker, and author. She helps women heal with clarity, courage, and soul. Writing and teaching about mindset, wellness, and living a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.
