Numerology is an ancient, esoteric practice spanning multiple cultures and continents, evolving over thousands of years. Numerologists believe that everything in the universe vibrates at a subatomic level with its own frequency—numbers and letters included. Your name and birthdate create a blueprint for the destiny you’re going to fulfill. Much like a birth chart, your numerological chart reveals your personality, traits, talents, and potential.
What’s a Life Path Number?
Your life path number derives from your date of birth and represents your key personality traits, and therefore your purpose in this lifetime. Some numerologists believe that you will live this life path, potentially over and over, until you learn the lesson, and then you move on to the next number.
Life paths might not always resonate when you first read about them. Bear in mind that life is a long game and you might take may twists and turns before finally hitting upon your true purpose. We all need to make mistakes, test ourselves, gain experience, and react to the childhoods we had before reaching a place of maturity, fulfillment, and service. Some get there faster than others, some never make it, but most of us take a long and winding road to finding our niche—and that’s okay.
How to Find Your Life Path Number
To find your life path number, simply reduce the digits of your full birth date until you reach a single-digit number, excluding 11 and 22 and 33, which are considered master numbers (we’ll return to them). This single digit is your individual life path number.
Let’s say your birthday is June 11, 1997. To calculate your life path number, you will reduce each component of this date to a single digit:
The date, 11, is reduced to 1+ 1 = 2.
The month, 06, is reduced to 6.
The year, 1997, is reduced to 1 + 9 + 9 + 7. This equals 26. Then, 26 is reduced to 2 + 6 = 8.
Then, we add the reduced month, date, and year numbers (2 + 6 + 8) and arrive at 16, which we then reduce again (1 + 6) to 7.
So, in this case, your life path number is 7.
The only time you would NOT reduce the final number is if you get 11 or 22 or 33. Those are considered master numbers, and they hold a special meaning of their own. Let’s talk more about life path 7.
Life Path Number 7: Personality Traits
Someone with life path number 7 is the logical mystic, the spiritual analyst, the lonely humanitarian, the truth-seeker. 7s are super smart, curious, and eager to and create progressive resolutions to worldly problems. They will use any form of knowledge or insight to reach their goals. There is a driving force within all 7s to seek knowledge, truth, and insight. They want to look under the hood and find out what they can do to repair and rebuild whatever is broken. This quest is often solo, but they do it for the good of everyone.
This is a life path that leads people into philosophy, engineering, innovation, and science. Ideally, they like to have the space and freedom to work alone. They pair the facts with their intuition to create startling new insights or ideas.
7s are investigative, intense, questioning, analytical, and sharp. They will explore whatever information is available to them to get to the truth—be that scientific, esoteric, religious, historical, artistic, or logical. This can take them down many different, unique, unexplored pathways, sometimes spending too much time alone as they traverse their own thoughts. 7s need to temper the urge to dwell for too long in solitude.
Life Path Number 7: Career
A person with life path 7’s career purpose is to reveal truths and push the boundaries of knowledge in whatever field they choose. They might be drawn to careers in and around innovation, research, engineering, technology, psychology, spirituality, teaching, creativity, digital invention, strategy, and journalism. 7s possess a natural instinct for untangling big problems and seeking answers to life’s big questions. They enjoy working alone, creating their own brief and parameters, but they can struggle with traditional work practices like deadlines, hierarchies, and administration. They operate best on the outskirts.
Life Path Number 7: Relationships
On the plus side, 7s are wise, curious, and philosophical. They make calm, compassionate and interested partners with strong ambition and abilities. There will be no shortage of deep and meaningful conversation with them. That said, 7s live in their own mind a great deal. They enjoy being alone and tend to embark on intense projects that take them into their own headspace even further.
7’s best matches, numerologically, are people with life path numbers 3, 5, or 8. Life path 7s are looking for match in terms of intellectual curiosity, or a match in terms of wanting to solve problems, build legacies, create progress in a partnership.
Celebrities with Life Path Number 7
- Taylor Swift
- Emma Stone
- Leonardo DiCaprio
- Keira Knightley
- Natalie Portman
- Hugh Grant
- Ashley Olsen
- Mary-Kate Olsen
- Elon Musk
- Jack Black
- Johnny Depp
- Ethan Hawke
- Paula Abdul
- Christian Bale
- Julia Roberts
- Antonio Banderas
- Lauryn Hill
- Janet Jackson
- Ewan McGregor
- Al Pacino
- Carmen Electra
- Fran Drescher
Tarot Reader
Kerry Ward has been reading and teaching tarot for over 25 years, and alongside her work as Horoscope contributor for Cosmopolitan UK, has worked for Cosmopolitan US, too. You can book a personal, written tarot reading with her, which comes as a beautifully illustrated brochure, while she is also the published author of Power Purpose Practice, Card of the Day Tarot and The Good Karma Tarot. She also created the Crystal Magic Tarot deck. Follow her on Instagram @mytarotbella for weekly forecasts, insights, and tarot teachings, or find her on LinkedIn.