Your New Life Work Balance Sheet: It’s all about figuring out what really matters. Step One.

2009 might have become the year that people built fall out shelters out of refrigerator boxes because the news kept getting more and more dismal. I know my 401K is worth about 38 cents as of today, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I couldn’t peel away some of the gloom to reveal that today is a great day to make some changes in our lives.

Whether you are planning on reinventing yourself after retirement, or you are working as a high level professional or you are somewhere in between, you need to take charge of My New Balance Sheet for My Life and with pen in hand (pencils are for sissies) begin to enter things that really make you happy. Happiness during a recession is possible. Repeat as needed.

As I look down at my list (yes, I did one before I signed on), I see some very basic entries that will not shock you, but the order may make you go, “What is this woman thinking?”

Number One – I top the charts with a couple of gold stars next to my name. I needed to take ownership of it. You need to take ownership of it. Right now. If I decided, for whatever silly, insecure reason, to lower myself to the bottom of my balance sheet, then I would be guilty of not being the best mother, wife, partner, business women, entrepreneur, friend or extraordinary woman that I know is hiding inside of me.

Yes, trust me, it took some time for little old me to realize this, but we must be number one in our lives. Once you are filled with love and admiration for yourself, then that love and admiration will radiate out to warm the hearts of all who come in contact with you. You know how the Sun is in the middle of it all? How life would not be able to exist without its rays? Well, from now on you are an excellent facsimile of that Number One Planet. Just don’t leave home without the SPF#15.