This useful and inspiring exercise was created by the lovely Victoria Brouhard.

What qualities would help you get that No-Brainer, “Hell yeah!” feeling about 2010?

Fun

Stability

Safety

Progress

Success

Growth

Peace

Love

Of those qualities, which ones can your business help you with? For each of them, describe how your business might help bring more of those qualities into your life.

Fun: Writing about exciting and socially mindful topics on my blogs and for work.

Stability: Find ways to steadily develop my income.

Safety: The above, plus organizing my time to better allow for the harmonious coexistence of work and volunteering at the humane society, Shiva Nata, yoga, meditation, exercises like this one, spending time in nature, and nurturing socialization.

Progress, growth, and success: Continue to learn and enrich myself through the things I write about and the strategies I come up with to stabilize my business and income. Develop new ways to help my Right People through new services or products, such as ebooks or courses.

Peace: Continue refusing to sell out working for corporations and companies/people who engage in questionable practices. In other words, keeping my conscience clean. Also, consistency to create stability and safety, as mentioned above.

Love: Continue to write from my heart, to care about what I do and how I help others with my work. Reach and connect with more people who are doing beautiful things in life through my blogs, social media profiles, and the launching of new services.

For the things you described above, what are some ideas for projects, activities or practices that you could explore to accomplish those things?

Developing steady income: Create sustainable products and courses, perhaps in collaboration with others in my field(s). Diversify my sources of income.

Organizing my time: Use my organizer and stick to schedules. Practice more planning ahead.

Reaching more people: Continue hanging out on Twitter and Facebook, increase blogging frequency and collaboration, offer new products. Maybe a newsletter; once I have the other new stuff figured out so I don’t overwhelm myself into stuckness and stagnation. Gah!

There will be some overlap as far as what qualities will increase with which projects. Are there any projects that give you more of the qualities than others?

Yes! Blogging and expanding the horizons of my business – you know, that’s a yucky word, so I’ll call it “work” – through the creation of new products and connections. Diversifying my income to perhaps make more time to nurture myself and, in turn, develop increased strength in myself that I will be able to use in my work!

Super!

Practicing the art of listening to yourself, your body, your true needs, is a gift in itself. It can be frustratingly difficult at first, but becomes easier with – wait for it – practice! Practice practice practice. What a pain in the butt. But, you know, not if you view this process as beautifully nutritious food for the soul, for the whole of you.

Besides, if you don’t nurture yourself, who will? Nobody, that’s who! And even if someone else tries, she or he will not get far without you opening the door to compassion, gratitude, and kindness to yourself. It’s like when you try to cheer up somebody suffering from low self-esteem. You can praise that person for her or his fantastic qualities all you want, but that person will keep on ignoring your words and telling you that you’re full of crap. Self-deprecation will prevail until that person is ready for transformation into self-love. Tough stuff. But never impossible!

Hey, all this self-love stuff is perfect for Valentine’s Day! May you have a happy one!