What is Life Purpose Coaching?
Life purpose coaching is a form of personal development and life coaching that aims to help people discover, clarify, and align their lives with a deeper sense of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.
It’s rooted in the idea that everyone has a unique purpose in life—something they’re meant to do or contribute to the world—and that uncovering and pursuing this purpose leads to a more satisfying and impactful life. In short, they help you figure out what you’re here to do with your life!
“What’s the purpose of life?” is a question humans have always asked because to be human is to be naturally existential. As humans, place and belonging matter a great deal. For one, we’re wired to stay in community because to be kicked out back in our early days meant exposure to the elements and becoming prey to larger animals, resulting in our death.
When we were more communal in our way of life, everyone had their role. There were parents and hunters and medicine people and storytellers. Our world is and has always been an interconnected web, with each person, animal, and organism playing a crucial role. It’s in our DNA to seek our place, serve the community, and be in harmony with the land that nourishes and sustains us.
To seek purpose is to embrace our human nature.
This guide speaks primarily to those considering life purpose coaching, as our mission and vision are to create a world where everyone can safely live their fullest expression and no one is held back or harmed by systems, subconscious programming, trauma, interpretations, or fear.
We hope this also serves as a resource for coaches doing this work.
7 Surprising Things Life Purpose Coaching Fails to Consider (And Why They Matter!)
1. Life Purpose Coaching and the Myth of “One True Purpose in Life”
Purpose is a more complex conversation than most life purpose coaches make it out to be. In the life purpose coaching world, there’s a lot of talk about finding your “one true purpose in life,” which leads to frustration and disbelief that purpose is a real thing that can be uncovered. Some people don’t like being boxed in by “one path,” and others struggle to pinpoint this elusive “one thing.”
That’s because the industry’s definition of purpose is incomplete.
The driving definition of life purpose coaching and where it goes wrong.
Many life purpose coaches present purpose as a single “aha” moment. You’ll take a quiz with some preference-based questions, and boom! You’ll know your one true purpose in life. There are two major issues with this approach:
First, most of these assessments are skill and interest-based, helping you identify potential work roles and career paths. But how we might best make money to pay our bills inside a harmful, capitalistic system isn’t an indicator of our purpose: who we‘re designed to be and how our purpose wants to express itself now. These methods of uncovering our purpose are inherently flawed.
Second, they perpetuate the myth that we have “one true purpose in life.” This is the idea that once you uncover your purpose (and remember, purpose is often incorrectly defined as a single role or career path), you’ll do that until your final days. The idea that we’re here to do one thing and one thing always directly opposes how purpose works. Do some people’s purpose expressions stay the same for a lifetime? Absolutely! That’s because the times didn’t change enough, or life didn’t shape them in a specific enough way that demanded a different expression.
Beyond the single “aha” moment and “one true purpose in life” conversations, purpose is also commonly conflated with passion by life purpose coaching and the personal development industry. Passion and purpose are two very different things, though they often intertwine.
Passion is personal and self-serving; it’s what you love and what lights you up. But passions often change throughout the different stages of our lives. Purpose is who we’re here to be—who we’re designed to grow into. It’s the very makeup of who we are as beings. Furthermore, purpose always centers on contribution, which inherently considers the greater good. It’s not solely self-focused.
Redefining Purpose for Life Purpose Coaching
In our work at Choose Your Calling, we define purpose as:
Show up, be you, and do what you feel called to do.
Due to conditioning (the process of training or accustoming a person to behave in a certain way or to accept certain circumstances), most people hear this through an individual-centric lens, but true purpose isn’t self-serving. It’s not about prioritizing our passions at the expense of other people, animals, and the land. It’s not about hoarding wealth or resources. And while our purpose work may bring recognition, it’s certainly not about fame as a means to make us feel good about ourselves.
Let’s break down our definition:
Showing up is about contribution and community care. Showing up to hold up our corner in the web of life. A web that weaves everyone and everything together, sustaining all life.
Being you is about living our fullest expression. It’s not about finding or creating ourselves as inspirational quotes would have us believe; it’s about remembering who we’ve always been, the person we were born to be in this life with all our idiosyncratic gifts.
Doing what you feel called to do is about choosing to become who we were born to be, not who the systems and social structures have conditioned (or forced) us to become.
That said (and despite common interpretations of our name), we don’t believe you get to choose who you want to be in this life. We believe your purpose has been hard-coded into you since before you were born. That’s the seed of purpose: who we are and who we’re here to be. However, how our purpose expresses itself (the work we’re here to do) changes based on the times we live in and how our life experiences shape us. Ultimately, we must choose to give ourselves over to our callings and actualize our fullest expression so that we can contribute to the world in the ways we’re meant to.
Everything in this world is created with a purpose.
This isn’t a nice idea or inspirational quip; it’s a fundamental truth of our world.
Every sentient life is designed to grow into a specific animal or person and take its place in the animal kingdom (that includes humans). A kitten, for example, is designed to grow into a cat. Every kitten born is designed to grow into the fullest expression of its unique design—a design that’s been hard-coded into its very being. That design contains its core personality along with its energetics.
While there isn’t an energy typing system for animals like we have for humans, all beings have inherent energetics. For animals, energetics are often instinctual and sensory-driven. This can be seen in how they respond to different environments, bond with humans or other animals, and take on protective, responsive, or leadership roles. One cat might have a grounding, self-contained energy, while another may be spastic and amplify its owner’s emotions.
Like animals, every seed is designed to grow into an organism and take its place inside an ecosystem. If you plant an acorn, it won’t grow into a crop of carrots. It will grow into an oak tree (and whether the seed is red or white determines whether it will be a red or white oak). Similarly, if you plant corn kernels, you’re going to reap corn come harvest time because those seeds are designed to grow into their fullest expression… assuming the conditions and timing are just right for them to flourish (as in, the ability for a person, animal, or other living organism to grow or develop healthily or vigorously, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment).
Similarly, humans are born with an inherent design that’s hard-coded into them. However, because we’re immediately born into a series of harmful man-made systems, we don’t have much chance to grow into that person and take our place inside the larger ecosystem and community. This is why it’s crucial that life purpose coaching understands and addresses systems alongside how life has uniquely shaped us and what the times we’re living in ask of us all.
2. Life Purpose Coaching Often Fails to Understand What Makes You, YOU (The Seed of Your Purpose)
Believe it or not, many in the life-purpose coaching industry don’t fully factor in who you are and how you work best. That’s not to say they aren’t trying because many coaches incorporate different assessments into their work with good intentions. But just because they’re using a tool doesn’t mean that a) they know how to work with the results or b) they’re using the best one.
At Choose Your Calling, we work with two systems for this.
Understanding your personality type with the Enneagram.
When it comes to personality typing, we find the Enneagram to be the most effective tool for life purpose coaching because it goes beyond just identifying traits or skills; it uncovers core motivations, fears, and growth paths, making it useful for self-discovery and life purpose alignment.
Here’s a look at why life purpose coaching should ideally include the Enneagram:
Unlike other personality tests (such as Myers Briggs or StrengthsFinder) that focus on how people behave, the Enneagram digs into why they behave that way, also known as our core motivations and fixations. Purpose isn’t just about what you’re good at or how you best do it; it’s about what drives you at a core level. If you don’t understand your core motivation and fixation, you’ll stay stuck in unconscious patterns and potentially waste time chasing misaligned goals.
One of its best features is that the Enneagram assesses and accounts for growth and transformation. Our purpose expression isn’t static; it evolves. The Enneagram shows different growth paths for the nine types, helping us move beyond limiting patterns to reach our full potential. Each type has “stress” and “growth” directions, showing where we might get stuck in fear vs. how we can expand into a more aligned life.
Another valuable feature is that each Enneagram type has “wings” and “overlays.” Wings are the two types before and after ours, with one holding more weight. These wings mean none of us can be simply defined by the traits of our type, as our wing heavily influences us. Overlays refer to learned behaviors or patterns that can sometimes mask or influence our core personality type, often from factors like culture, family dynamics, or life experiences. As all life purpose coaching work needs to, the Enneagram allows for more nuance.
The Enneagram also considers subconscious programming, an undeniable influence in life purpose coaching work, helping identify self-sabotage and blocks. Many struggle to find their purpose in life because of limiting beliefs, fears, or old conditioning. The Enneagram highlights these common blocks and offers insights into overcoming them.
The Enneagram integrates passion, purpose, and contribution as fundamental considerations. It doesn’t just tell you what excites you (like passion-based tools) or what you’re skilled at (like strengths-based tools); it helps you understand what will bring lasting fulfillment by aligning your natural motivations with meaningful work. Additionally, our purpose expression often comes from healing our core struggles and using them to serve and support others. The Enneagram helps clarify how this often unfolds for each type.
The Enneagram is a holistic tool, blending psychology, spirituality, and practical growth. The Enneagram bridges inner fulfillment with external action, showing how deeper self-awareness can lead to outward purposefulness. It also resonates across different perspectives, be it a career lens, a spiritual journey, or seeking personal fulfillment.
Understanding our unique personality type is crucial to life purpose coaching work, but the tools that coaches use are equally important to consider.
Understanding your unique energetics with Human Design.
When it comes to understanding our energetics, Human Design is one of the most potent tools available because it goes beyond personality traits and skill assessments altogether. Instead, it reveals how your energy is designed to flow, how you best make decisions, and how you can align with your unique purpose in the most effortless and fulfilling way.
And what is energy when it comes to us as human beings? In short, it’s the frequency at which we vibrate. While it’s tempting to brush this concept off as “woo-woo” and ungrounded, everything in our universe vibrates at varying frequencies. This isn’t just a metaphor; it’s physics. Every atom, every molecule in our body, is in constant motion, generating vibrational energy. Just as sound waves, light waves, and radio frequencies exist on a spectrum, so do the energetic patterns within and around us. This is why we can “feel” someone’s presence before they speak or sense the weight of a tense room without a word being said. Our energy, influenced by our emotions, thoughts, environment, and physiology, is both a scientific reality and an experiential one.
Here’s why life purpose coaching should ideally include Human Design:
Unlike personality tests or any other assessment tool for coaching, which categorize behavior or strengths, Human Design helps you understand how your energy naturally functions and where you may be operating out of alignment due to conditioning. Purpose isn’t just about what excites you or what you’re good at; it’s about how you’re meant to move through the world and where you experience the most ease and flow. If you don’t understand your design, you may struggle with frustration, bitterness, anger, or disappointment because you’re trying to force yourself into a misaligned approach.
One of the most valuable aspects of Human Design is that it acknowledges that purpose expression isn’t fixed; it’s an unfolding process of alignment (based on how life shapes us and the times we live in). Unlike rigid frameworks, Human Design provides a blueprint that helps us understand how we evolve and shift unproductive patterns. Understanding our authority (our decision-making style or how we access our intuition) helps us make decisions based on our authentic energy rather than external pressure or expectations.
A core focus of Human Design is deconditioning work, which is rooted in our subconscious programming—the societal, cultural, and familial conditioning that tells us we should operate in specific ways. Human Design helps uncover these layers of influence, showing us where we might be holding onto behaviors that aren’t aligned with our energy. By understanding our “centers,” “strategy,” and “authority,” we can break free from self-sabotaging patterns and start making decisions from a place of alignment.
Human Design views life purpose as an energetic expression, not just a career path. It’s focused on how you express your energy in a fulfilling way, integrating purpose and contribution by showing you how your natural energy flow supports meaningful work. Each energy type comes with its unique gifts and much-needed additions to the community.
Human Design is another holistic system, blending astrology, the I Ching, Kabbalah, and quantum physics to offer a profoundly personalized roadmap for self-discovery. It doesn’t just tell you who you are; it shows you how you’re meant to operate in the world, make aligned decisions, and work with your energy instead of against it.
When it comes to life purpose coaching, the tools being used matter. Human Design isn’t just about categorizing personality; it’s about helping individuals become their most authentic selves.
All that said, we understand that not all individuals like assessments of any kind, as they can be interpreted as confining or limiting. The ultimate goal of using tools like the Enneagram and Human Design in life purpose coaching is to understand who you are and how you operate so that the coach can work with you in a productive way that honors what makes you unique.
If a life purpose coach doesn’t understand you, they cannot be effective.
The best they can do is tell you what worked for them or others. They can attempt to inspire and motivate you into action, along with maybe providing some tools that they or their clients like. And, in many cases, if you don’t discover your life purpose and continue to struggle with the process, they’ll blame your mindset or tell you that “you’re just not working hard enough.”
This is one of the most prominent and unethical practices in coaching right now.
Unequipped and unskilled coaches (even those—and sometimes especially those—with coaching certifications) tell their clients to take more personal responsibility for their results when they, as coaches, aren’t taking ownership of their shortcomings or the harm they’re causing.
We’ll talk about this more below!
3. Life Purpose Coaching Completely Overlooks Context (And, At Times, Our Worldview)
Context is king. This is more than a cliché; it’s a truth that not enough coaches understand and take to heart. Most life purpose coaches don’t even understand their own context and worldview, let alone that their clients may have completely different contexts and worldviews. This is like trying to run a program designed for PC’s on an Apple computer… it just doesn’t work.
This also turns what could be wonderfully inspirational or motivational conversations into harmful experiences because there’s a lack of shared context, something most life purpose coaches have little to no understanding or experience in creating. Worse yet, social media bastardizes personal growth and healing conversations, turning them into oversimplified quips that get regurgitated without context. For example, what was a valuable line in an article about maintaining relationships with a healthy and safe parent once we’re grown becomes a shaming, confusing, and dangerous message to someone with a broken parental relationship due to abuse and trauma.
Context is essential to life purpose coaching, and the ability to create shared context is 100% necessary for effective, safe, and supportive communication in any coaching container.
To do this, a life purpose coach must understand:
Subconscious programming: This is an essential aspect of life purpose coaching (and all coaching) that’s often overlooked, so we dedicated the following section to it. The short for now is that our subconscious programming serves as our base operating system. We think we’re making conscious choices in life, but until we understand the subconscious influences at play (that have been there since childhood and are, therefore, nearly impossible to see ourselves), we’re not free and leveraged to do anything with full consciousness. Our subconscious programming shapes our worldviews, beliefs, stories, and interpretations. Life purpose coaches simply can’t assume that anyone’s subconscious is the same as theirs. Understanding each client’s highly unique subconscious winning strategy is critical.
Core wounding: Core wounds can be described as an “emotional injury” from early childhood that further reinforces our subconscious programming and defines our worldview. Our core wound generally revolves around feeling unlovable, broken or damaged at our core, like we don’t belong, or some flavor of not being enough. Whatever our core wound is, it shapes what we believe is possible for our lives. It’s also a feeling or set of feelings that we actively and unconsciously work extremely hard never to feel. Because it’s unconscious, we have no idea that most of our day-to-day motivations for doing, being, or saying anything revolve around affirming that our core wound is untrue. Core wounds can be hindrances to living our purpose, which is why life purpose coaches need to understand what they are, how to uncover them, and how to work with them.
Past traumas: Trauma is one of the number one ways that life shapes us, and traumatic experiences often crack us open to our true purpose (who we’re here to be), revealing deeper callings around which our purpose wishes to express itself (the work we’re here to do). Trauma is preverbal, which means our trauma response is in effect before our conscious mind even registers what’s happening. This directly affects our subconscious mind and can further reinforce negative beliefs, fears, core wound stories, and self-doubt. It can also add new ones, instantly altering our worldview and sense of self.
Additionally, with trauma, there’s no “mind over matter,” as many coaches would have us believe. It’s matter over mind because our animal bodies are stuck in an unresolved physiological process. We cannot hustle, mindset, or positively think our way out of trauma. Instead, we must know how to work with trauma neurologically and physiologically. While being “trauma-informed” has become a trendy way for coaches to claim an understanding of these things, it doesn’t mean they have the skill or capacity to help heal it without retraumatizing you in the process. Trauma healing must include somatic and cellular healing, not just intellectualization.
Values. Our values are beliefs and ideals that guide our actions and decisions. Values can be any number of things and can be boiled down into a set of core values. Because values are rooted in language, semantics is essential (the meaning we individually assign to specific words). For example, two people can say they value relationships, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing. One may value them more highly (centering their life around their partner and family), while another may only value them in a transactional sense (they like having people they can call on when needed). In life purpose coaching, the person you’re working with must understand your core values, how you rank them, and what they mean to you. If a life purpose coach assumes you value the same things or mean what they mean by those words, they can’t effectively work with you.
In addition to understanding these things about you, to effectively understand your context and worldview, they must also understand these things about themselves. Establishing a clear context when coaching, creating content, or teaching is crucial to ethical coaching containers and practices.
4. Life Purpose Coaching Oversimplifies Subconscious Programming and Fails to Support Repatterning It
While many in the life purpose coaching world talk about the subconscious, not everyone fully understands or knows how to work with it to create more freedom and leverage.
When we’re born, the subconscious mind is wide open, accepting all incoming information from the world and people around us. Our conscious mind, which allows us to accept and reject information, doesn’t come online until we’re between five and seven years old (sometimes even later.) So everything that we experience until our conscious mind activates shapes our entire belief system.
This is why most beliefs are inherently limited; they were taught to us over several years while our lives are incredibly narrow. We see our family or caretakers, possibly go to church or other religious and cultural spaces, and we might spend some time at daycares or kindergarten. Those people and experiences form the basis for how we view the world and create meaning, and those beliefs are the undertone of anything we experience, learn, decide, or do from thereon out.
Those beliefs run on autopilot in the background (much like a computer operating system—the core software that controls how it functions and executes programs), shaping our “winning strategy.” This strategy, something I learned from the brilliant Tracy Goss in her book The Last Word on Power, develops based on what we believe is possible and impossible.
We begin to compensate for what we think is impossible and operate in particular ways to ensure an attainable level of safety, security, success, love, and belonging. We have no idea this strategy has formed or its influence on everything we do. It effectively shapes the way we experience the world, what we listen or watch for in every situation, how we’re most likely to act in response, and what we seek to feel or avoid so that we can be sure we’re “winning” at the game of life to some acceptable degree.
So, while coaches may understand on a high level how the subconscious mind works and that many of our foundational beliefs are narrow by nature, they don’t understand the winning strategy, how to identify it, or how to release it (because it’s not about forming a new or “better” one).
The winning strategy is made up of four elements:
What you listen for. This is where your attention is drawn in every situation. You might be listening to what’s being said, how things feel, or the vibe of a space.
What actions you take. Once you “hear” what you’re listening for, you take specific actions because experience tells you they’ll produce “winning” results. While these actions vary depending on the situation, they generally fall into specific categories like “provide what’s wanted or needed” or “figure out what’s missing and formulate the best solution.”
The outcomes you seek. Those “winning” results are a set of feelings that allow you to feel safe, secure, successful, loved, or like you belong.
The feelings you avoid. When you experience the outcomes you seek and feel like you’ve “won,” you don’t have to experience your core wound feelings—what you unconsciously avoid.
Repatterning the subconscious requires more than “thinking positively” and “changing your mindset.” Your subconscious mind has been working from this strategy—influencing every conscious choice you’ve made—for your entire life. It’s the basis of your decision-making, action-taking, and way of being. It’s how your beliefs are mapped and why certain things feel utterly impossible. And every time you bump into a seemingly impossible desire or goal, it only further reinforces your winning strategy, anchoring you in even deeper.
Anyone in the life purpose coaching field (or related industries) who defaults to telling you that you’re not successful because of your mindset but who doesn’t think mindset work is anything more than a positive attitude isn’t qualified to support you in this work. Along with understanding your personality and energetic typing, mapping your subconscious winning strategy is the first thing we do with our clients. You can’t repattern something you don’t understand. Instead, you’ll continue to self-sabotage (which is just our subconscious’ way of keeping us safe and secure based on those underlying beliefs) and further reinforce the very thing you’re trying to change.
5. Life Purpose Coaching Causes Immense Harm by Lacking a Systems Thinking Lens
To live our purpose in life, we have to free ourselves from systemic conditioning.
To free ourselves from systemic conditioning, we must understand systems and their influence.
Only when we understand systemic influence and work to decondition on an individual level can we collectively create a world where everyone can safely live their fullest expression.
Most people working in life purpose coaching don’t understand systems and have little to no training in systems thinking. Worse yet, many are privileged within those very systems, so they don’t understand the harm caused to and limitations imposed on marginalized communities (this means the coach has a special right, advantage, or immunity that most people don’t, often due to factors like social class, race, gender, or other aspects of identity). This is another reason those who blame mindset are causing further damage to clients.
You can’t mindset your way past violent racism, misogyny, and oppression. You can’t “positive vibes only” past inequity, underrecognition1, and other people’s unconscious biases. Can your mindset support an internal context that can better weather the effects of systems? Definitely! But that’s an entirely different conversation than most people in life purpose coaching are having.
Much of our present-day personal development industry is rooted in colonial, patriarchal white supremacy.
Who’s seen as the “fathers” of personal development? Who’s written the most read and celebrated books on growth and success? It’s primarily white men. Not because white men inherently knew best but because they were the only people with any rights, respect, access to wealth, education, and resources, and who the systems were designed to celebrate and support.
And who designed those systems? White men.
Let’s look at how prominent systems are in our world.
As humans, we’re born into a cluster of man-made systems.
That typically includes family, cultural, religious, and social systems and whichever healthcare system is present at birth. As we grow up, we’re thrust into some version of an educational and expanded social system. And remember, as humans, our subconscious mind is the only thing available to us until we’re five to seven years old, so we’re wide open to the influences of these systems and the privileged or power-holding people within them.
Those influences create childhood trauma, core wounds, subconscious winning strategies, relational attachment styles, and lock in our personality type’s fixation (the core, often negative, mental patterns or beliefs that each personality type tends to hold onto, essentially shaping their perspective on the world and influencing their behavior). These influences and effects shape us into conditioned and compliant adults, conforming to the systems’ expectations and demands. It’s crucial to understand that this is by design.
Systems can only survive when upheld, and every system has a beneficiary, usually a group of people. A system like capitalism requires that most humans conform to the beliefs that productivity equals worth, success can only be measured by external achievements, and (life purpose coaching’s favorite flawed belief) individual struggle is a personal failing rather than a structural issue. When people internalize a system’s inherent narratives, they become easier to manage, less likely to question authority, and more inclined to police themselves and others into compliance. This conditioning ensures that the system remains intact, benefiting the few at the expense of the many.
It’s not accidental; it’s engineered.
As we mature into adulthood, we begin interacting with even more systems (if we haven’t encountered them already, as most of these are deeply intertwined). This includes patriarchal, social, justice, healthcare, food, government, financial, workforce, and global systems.
In short, systems create conditions that actively hinder our fullest expression, especially if we’re considered “other” inside that system (as in, not one of the privileged). Many are specifically designed to strip us of who we are and mold us into who they need us to be.
They create an unsafe, inequitable, violent, and oppressive world.
This leads to complex and acute trauma, experiences of grief and loss, lack of essential resources that keep us from thriving, numbing techniques, dissociation, self-harm, depression, anxiety, illness, broken relationships, and panic disorders (just to name some of the effects).
If a life purpose coach doesn’t understand systems, especially when they’re beneficiaries, they perpetuate that violence and harm. It may not be malicious or intentional, but it’s dangerous nonetheless. The truth is, many in the life purpose coaching world mean well. They want to help people live happier and healthier lives, and they do their best with the tools and knowledge they have available to them. However, intention and impact are very different things.
If your impact on people is harmful, your intentions hold little weight. All the inspiration, motivation, and positive thinking in the world don’t override the effects of harmful systems, and any coach we work with must understand that.
6. Life Purpose Coaching Pushes Personal Responsibility Without Teaching Discernment
Personal responsibility is about taking ownership of our life and outcomes, and in situations where we have zero control over what happened, taking responsibility for how we respond. Sadly, personal responsibility has become weaponized in the life purpose coaching industry (and all coaching industries) because it’s an easy way to put the burden back on clients.
The problem here is twofold:
First, life purpose coaches abdicate responsibility for their role.
This means they fail to fulfill or undertake their responsibility or duty, putting any failures, frustrations, or lack of results back on their clients. While it’s true that we’re ultimately the only people responsible for our happiness, life purpose coaches not taking ownership of their lack of skill, knowledge, or effectiveness is an epidemic bringing the entire industry down. They’re also harming many people in the process, which is entirely unacceptable.
That said, this practice reveals a lot.
- Firstly, it tells us that these life purpose coaches don’t understand the mechanism behind their success around a specific goal. It worked for them, so they believe it should work for others, too. If it doesn’t work for others, and because they lack a deep level of self-awareness, subconscious repatterning, and healing in themselves, these coaches will further defend their work and blame their clients for “not trying hard enough.” And if the clients have hustled harder than even the coach ever did but still haven’t seen results, they default to “it’s a mindset problem.”
- Secondly, it tells us that these life purpose coaches don’t understand or consider systems. You can hustle 23 out of 24 hours a day and think positively 100% of that time and still not move the needle even slightly because of inequities, injustices, bigotry, and deeply entrenched systemic barriers that limit access to opportunities, resources, and support. Ignoring these realities places the burden of success solely on the individual, as if mindset and effort alone can overcome obstacles like generational poverty, discrimination, or lack of social capital. Promoting a one-size-fits-all, hyper-individualistic approach that dismisses the very real external challenges people face reveals a major shortcoming and lack of education and awareness within the coach.
Sometimes, not doing the work consistently enough or our mindset is a factor, but that doesn’t negate the impact of systems. To oversimplify the issue as a “personal failure” is to align with systems of harm and give away any ownership or accountability in their role as a coach.
Second, life purpose coaches don’t teach their clients discernment.
Discernment is the ability to judge well.
(In coaching, this means for yourself and your life).
Any coach not teaching their clients to discern what feels right and wrong to them, what resonates and what doesn’t, and what their intuition is telling them vs. what’s fear and subconscious self-sabotage is doing an immense disservice. Effectively teaching discernment means helping clients know how their body and intuition communicate with them and never undermining the fact that the only person who knows what’s best for them is… the client.
As clients, do we sometimes misread our intuition, act out of fear and avoidance, and succumb to interpretations and limiting beliefs? Of course! We’re human. But a skilled coach will know how to help you discern what’s what without shaming or bullying you into doing what they tell you. Nor will they rush you through the process, overriding your nervous system or natural pace (unless you’ve given explicit consent for them to safely and consciously push your edges with skilled care).
In a safe life purpose coaching relationship, a coach will teach you it’s okay not to listen to them. They’ll remind you that you’re the only person who knows yourself best, and you’re the only person who can accurately discern these things for yourself. And when you tell them something isn’t feeling right or working for you, they’ll partner with you to determine what is aligned. While they’ll lovingly nudge you outside your comfort zone, they won’t disrespect your boundaries or self-awareness.
Instead, many in the life purpose coaching industry have succumbed to harmful practices that we call activation marketing (and, similarly, activation sales). This is when coaches activate people’s desperation, insecurity, and sense of scarcity or FOMO (fear of missing out), causing them to purchase from an ungrounded place.
When a life purpose coach acts like they have the big secret you’re missing, and they’re only going to dangle the possibility of it in front of your face for the next five seconds, that coach is manipulating and pressuring you to act too quickly.
Many of these practices (a conversation we go into in our agency resources at Choose Your Calling) seem as simple as traditional marketing, but they raise many crucial ethical questions. Why? Because if someone or something triggers panic and unnecessary urgency, activating your nervous system and preying on fears and traumas, can you make the best and right decision for yourself in that moment? No, not usually.
Your body is in fight or flight, and you’re operating from activated fear, which means physiologically and neurologically, you’re not in your right mind. There’s nothing inherently wrong with informing people of deadlines, the number of available spaces, or offering bonuses to early adopters of an offering. But when we use these things in an untrue way and/or unnecessarily activate people to rush through their decision-making process rather than allowing time and space to feel into what’s right for them, that’s not clean marketing, and it’s not harmless sales.
When life purpose coaches do this, your ability to discern from the start of your relationship is consciously overridden. This is a major red flag, and even though it may be easily confused with nervous excitement, the activated sensations in your body are a key indicator of that.
7. Life Purpose Coaching Fails to Connect Individual Purpose with Collective Contribution
As we discussed earlier, most in the life purpose coaching field conflate purpose with passion. In addition, they also fail to connect individual purpose with collective contribution. Purpose and callings inherently center on contribution to the collective (jump back up to our earlier definition of purpose and how we’re meant to take our place in a larger, global ecosystem!)
One big reason for this is the pressure to monetize purpose.
This stems directly from our culture’s deep entrenchment with capitalism (an economic system where private individuals own and control property and businesses). Hustle culture, the side gig economy, and the fact that many people are desperate to break free from the chains of unfulfilling jobs all contribute to why so many are entering life purpose coaching.
There are currently no regulations in place, so the barrier to entry is relatively easy. Throw up a website, call yourself a [insert focus area] coach, and start bragging about how amazing your life is online. If you do, you’ll make millions working from your laptop at beaches worldwide!*
*As an aside, this is an example of unethical activation marketing at play. Coaches who coach other coaches to coach more coaches from a self-serving motivation to make more money. They use the tactics we talked about above to convince you that they have something you want. And because you’re also probably frustrated, exhausted, and desperate for a more fulfilling life, you buy.
This is a common motivation behind getting into coaching, and because we live in a capitalist society that ties our worth to production and money, there’s a lot of pressure to monetize purpose.
In reality, some purpose expressions involve making money, and others don’t. Don’t let anyone fool you into believing that the ones who make money and garner “fame” and “influence” have a “better” purpose in life. They don’t; it just aligns with making money at this time.
All purpose work matters, regardless of scale, scope, pay, or recognition. If we can’t untangle our desire to find our purpose in life from these beliefs or what capitalism has conditioned us to prioritize, it will continue to be a struggle to uncover our purpose and its right expression.
We understand this work is incredibly challenging because we live inside capitalism, and we all need to make money to care for ourselves and our lives. This is why addressing systemic change on a personal and systemic level is essential.
Capitalism isn’t only failing billions of people who spend all of their time trying to get by, by keeping them in a constant state of survival mode; it’s also keeping us from living our fullest expression, finding our place, and holding up our corner in the web of life.
This means that the times are asking something very specific of us all: to disrupt and dismantle harmful systems by focusing on deconditioning, healing, and following our callings.
It’s asking us to unhook from consumerism as a coping mechanism for an unfulfilling life and instead to recenter community, land, and purposeful connections. It’s asking us to uncover and heed what’s calling at us on a soul level—to do our work in the world based on how life has shaped us and what these times are asking. To start our Channels for Change™ and create entirely new ways of living and being that allow all of us to safely live our fullest expression.
If you’re working with a life purpose coach whose teachings are only focused on individualism without any connection to community contribution, their work further oppresses you and everyone you love. This is a bold statement, we know. But it’s an essential conversation for creating change in the world and something we feel anyone seeking coaching of any kind needs to consider.
Does This Mean You Should Avoid Life Purpose Coaching?
Not at all! Life purpose coaching can be incredibly valuable when it’s done with depth, nuance, and a real understanding of human complexity and what it takes to do this work effectively.
The problem isn’t with life purpose coaching itself; it’s with how it’s often approached: overly simplistic, hyper-individualistic, or dismissive of real barriers and systemic factors.
If you’re considering life purpose coaching, it’s crucial to choose a coach who understands these layers and acknowledges that purpose isn’t just about personal passion but also about contributing to something larger than yourself.
You’ll want to look for a coach who:
- Moves beyond the myth of “one true purpose in life.”
- Works with the Enneagram and/or Human Design as tools (or has an effective process for understanding who you are/how you work best).
- Understands all the elements that make up your context, subconscious programming, and how to identify and release winning strategies.
- Acknowledges systemic realities and doesn’t frame success as a mindset issue (or lack of success as solely a personal failing).
- Teaches discernment, not just personal responsibility (as abdication).
- Connects purpose to collective contribution.
If you’re considering working with a life purpose coach, here are some key questions to ask to ensure they approach life purpose coaching with depth, nuance, and an understanding of all factors:
- How do you define life purpose?
- Do you believe we have one fixed purpose, or do you see purpose as an evolution?
- How do you help clients who feel torn between multiple interests or callings?
- How do you uncover deeper motivations beyond surface-level interests or skills?
- How do you take background, culture, and personal experiences into account?
- Do you use any frameworks to help clients understand their core wiring?
- How do you help clients work through blocks, self-sabotage, or limiting beliefs?
- How do you acknowledge and address systemic barriers that hinder purpose work?
- Do you believe personal responsibility is the only factor in success, or do you consider external factors like privilege, access to resources, and systemic inequities?
- How do you help clients balance personal accountability with discernment?
- What’s your perspective on “just think positive” advice regarding life purpose?
- How do you guide clients in connecting their personal purpose to something larger?
- Do you help clients explore how their purpose can contribute to the collective?
And when you ask these questions, practice discernment.
While you may have past traumas, subconscious programming, and other things crop up that make this feel difficult, you can trust yourself. Even if it’s buried underneath heaps of conditioning, your animal body is wired to communicate with you, and it’s always doing so.
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A good practice: take at least 24 hours to decide on working with a life purpose coach. They may try to sway you with epic bonuses, pay-in-full-before-hanging-up discounts, and other tactics, but remember that these things can activate your nervous system and take you out of your right mind (even when they’re done cleanly by the coach, such as informing vs. persuading). In ethical life purpose coaching, you’ll be honored, respected, and supported in this.
Interested in Working With Us for Life Purpose Coaching?
My purpose in life is to help others heal and find wholeness, uncover their true purpose, and follow their deepest callings.
Life has taken me through some challenging but transformative seasons, forcing me to heal from trauma, break through lifelong fears and self-sabotaging patterns, and make the seemingly impossible happen in all areas. From this, I’ve developed processes rooted in reality—no “woo-woo” fluff, toxic positivity, or magical thinking, just a grounded approach that works.
My personal journey includes healing from PTSD after a traumatic loss and abusive relationships, restoring my health after battling complex conditions, and publishing books that change lives, including my memoir, Unravel, which was a number-one new release in multiple categories.
I also have two decades of business success under my belt.
In this time, I’ve merged the worlds of personal development, digital media, branding, and strategic consulting to help hundreds of individuals and organizations create change in the world by honoring their unique gifts and contributions and aligning their lives and work in the process.
I reside in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, where I run Choose Your Calling from my current dream house (a renovated fifth-wheel camper), spending my days with my partner, Nick, the love of my life, my best friend, and my perfect match—seemingly impossible goals that are now my reality.
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This is for you, if you are:
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This is for you, if you are:
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References:
1 This term was introduced to us by the brilliant N. Chloé Nwangwu of NobiWorks.
