Note: This is part of a new series where I fea­ture peo­ple who are on their true peak jour­ney.  If you’re inter­ested in shar­ing your story, please con­tact me.

“A jour­ney of a thou­sand miles must begin with a sin­gle step.” ~ Lao Tzu

Today, our guest is Jacque­line Way, from 365 Give | Chang­ing The World One Day at a Time.  Jacque­line recently started on a quest to make a dif­fer­ence in our world, every day, and doc­u­ment that jour­ney.  From that, her site has become a place to share some­thing, every day , that is good in the world — from her, and from oth­ers mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in their own unique ways. 

Jacque­line shares her story of life, and of find­ing a deeper pur­pose in all that she does.

Please read and enjoy…

Do you ever won­der what your true call­ing is? Do you ever won­der why you are here or what the mean­ing of your life is?

What Is My Purpose?

I have asked myself this ques­tion often. It started when I began my own busi­ness in my late 20’s. I started in the won­der­ful world if fundrais­ing. Pre­vi­ously, I had many oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow my busi­ness and get involved in the cor­po­rate world but I made a clear deci­sion based on my “call­ing.”  I’m not reli­gious but I heard this voice — that lit­tle voice we all have. It was call­ing to me and telling me to base my busi­ness on giv­ing back. I didn’t have a mil­lion dol­lars to give away but I knew I could raise it through other peo­ple. Fif­teen years later I have done just that. I have used my skills to raise more money than I could ever give by lis­ten­ing to my calling.

Then Comes Mid­dle Age

Then I hit 40. Oh that magic age that makes us sit and reflect what we have done to date. All of a sud­den I was half way through my life, I had a two year old and I wanted to do more (as if rais­ing a child and run­ning my own busi­ness wasn’t enough). But the voice was get­ting louder and louder.  I wanted to get to the end of my life and know I had done every­thing in my power to leave the world a bet­ter place for my beau­ti­ful son, his friends and future gen­er­a­tions. I sat, (I had no choice I had bro­ken my foot – the gifts life gives us!) I pon­dered, I thought, I wrote, I waited to be inspired. I waited..and waited…and waited… and then it came!

Inspi­ra­tion!

It hit me one day when I asked myself some impor­tant questions.

• When was I happiest?
• What made me work until the wee hours of the night just because it made me happy?
• If I was asked to get up in front of an audi­ence with no prepa­ra­tion and speak pas­sion­ately on one topic what would it be?
• If I won a mil­lion dol­lars what would I do with it?

The Answers 

The answers were there, I just had to lis­ten. The answers to all of my ques­tions came back to the same thing. I wanted to change the world! Wow what a big state­ment from one person.

I wanted to inspire other peo­ple to give more in their lives. I wanted to find a way to make peo­ple under­stand that our every­day actions and choices could change the world. I’m not Bono or Oprah but I am some­one. I am one per­son that could do some­thing every day to make the world a bet­ter place. I had few finan­cial resources to start a world­wide move­ment, lit­tle tech­ni­cal back­ground but I had a vision and desire. I had pas­sion, I was inspired and I had the drive to fig­ure it out. I had one other thing as well that had been hold­ing me back for far too long.…

Fear

Have you ever been so scared to start some­thing you know noth­ing about that you just don’t do it? I have done it many times. I have tons of bril­liant ideas to change the world but fear always held me back.

• What would peo­ple think?
• Where would I get the money?
• How would I do it alone?
• Who do I think I am?

 Not this time. I had a son to think of and an exam­ple to set. What kind of an exam­ple was I set­ting if I let my fear get the best of me and let my life go by with­out at least try­ing. I took a deep breath and jumped. I asked for help and the per­fect per­son appeared to hold my hand to get me going. I started a blog, 365give.ca. Eight months ago I didn’t even know what a blog was. But I had to write – every­day. It was going to be my mis­sion. Do one thing to give back to the world every­day and blog about it. I did for­get one thing about myself — I’m not a writer! I can ask peo­ple for money for a good cause, but I’m not a writer. I started writ­ing every day. Then came the chal­lenge to get my blog noticed. Twit­ter? Face­book? No one told me I had to become a social media expert so some­one would read my writ­ing! Ahhhh! In comes the fear – I don’t do social media. I do now. I’m not an expert but I do my best.

Hap­pi­ness

Hap­pi­ness comes in many shapes and sizes. It can be as sim­ple as tak­ing the first lick of your favourite ice-cream or lying on a beach lis­ten­ing to the waves. It can be a first kiss or your first born. The hap­pi­ness your get from giv­ing back every day is some­thing no one can take from me. It doesn’t come and go, it doesn’t leave you or fade. Giv­ing every­day has brought me a hap­pi­ness that gets me up in the morn­ing and dri­ves me. It helps me write, it helps me Tweet and Face­book. It even keeps my fear at bay.

The great­est gift of giv­ing is what you receive from it. The look on someone’s face, the first time your son picks up garbage to help the planet with­out any prompt­ing. Or it could be a sur­prise email in your inbox from some­one like Lance that inspires you to keep going.

Explor­ing

Tak­ing the time to explore what it all means to you is time well spent. I have found my call­ing. It is giv­ing. It has made me feel like I am mov­ing in the direc­tion I should be going. It will change and evolve as I move along this jour­ney but I now know I am head­ing in the right direction.

What will you do to move in the direc­tion you should be going? Will you listen?

Jacque­line Way is the founder of 365give, an online diary of one woman’s actions and impact in chang­ing the world every day for 365days. 365give has the poten­tial to cre­ate a move­ment of giv­ing and a com­mu­nity of com­mit­ted ”givers” that can edu­cate and inspire future gen­er­a­tions.  Keep up with Jacque­line on Twit­ter and Face­book.

Note:  Pho­tos pro­vided, in part, by Karen Somers Pho­tog­ra­phy.