What Are You Doing For New Year’s?!

Happy New Year!

May this next year be filed with magical moments, dreams fulfilled and enough love, joy and laughter to light up the sky!

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, leave your comments, your encouragement, your loving support and growing on this adventure with me.

Deepest gratitude and best wishes for 2012!

Liza

What are you doing for NEW YEAR’S? …I get asked this question a lot. I’m not sure if it’s because people really want to know or if they are looking for ideas, hee hee… New Year’s, after all, carries with it a tremendous amount of pressure to have the BEST time at the COOLEST place, the most AMAZING evening with most interesting and fabulous people, getting into the most EXCLUSIVE club or a PRIVATE PARTY …all of these options are great fun, but it’s the HIGH EXPECTATIONS that have been known to undermine any chance of a good time. Which is perhaps why many people chose to opt out for a small INTIMATE dinner at home with a few friends, or a late night date with a pizza, bottle of wine and the TV, watching the apple go down in Times Square…or for those who have “BEEN THERE, DONE THAT” it seems staying awake until the wee hour of twelve midnight is just too much to ask.

When I had my restaurants, I was responsible for giving my guests the TIME OF THEIR LIVES on the last night of the year…for over 14 years. Talk about pressure…I LOVED every minute of it! …and every year was different – because every year the world was different. There was a real estate crash, a recession, a dot com boom, a stock market craze, a dot com bust, a stock market crash, real estate boom, 9/11, War, crash, boom, craze…you get the idea. These events deeply affected my guests and the ENERGY of the party from year to year, and I grew to LEARN a lot about New Year’s Eve and PEOPLE. The first thing I learned was everyone has an expectation but not everyone has an intention. The second thing I learned was resolutions are often guilt trips in disguise. And the third thing I learned was that people can’t wait for next year…and are plenty happy drinking LAST YEAR AWAY! It was no wonder why some were SUSCEPTIBLE to a let down…

Now that I can be a GUEST of New Year’s after HOSTING so many, I have come up with a 5 STEP RITUAL for INOCULATING myself from the proverbial New Year’s Eve LET-DOWN no matter what’s going on in the world, what I’m doing, who I’m with or where I am…It ends up being the PERFECT NIGHT!

This is how I ROLL on NEW YEAR’S EVE!:

1. I set an INTENTION for the evening. – ie. be present with whomever I’m with, let go of any and all stresses for the night, accept & love myself for who I am at this moment, surround myself with people I really care about.

2. I let the night UNFOLD before me, release expectations and go with the flow…aaaaaaaah there’s goes the pressure!

3. I feel GRATITUDE for this night…I’m so fortunate to have lived another year on this beautiful planet, to see all the things that make my heart smile, friends, family, and life experiences…here comes the JOY!

4. Make a RESOLUTION that morning and start living it THAT DAY! …I WILL do 100 sit ups a day starting now!! I set myself up for success.

5. HONOR the past and EMBRACE the future. – I respect and value the lessons I’ve learned, the friends I have made, the memories I will cherish…and l look forward to the unknown, new friends, new growth and new experiences with ENTHUSIASM!

If I keep these simple steps in my champagne marinated consciousness, I may barely remember what it is I actually did that night – but somehow the MEANING always sticks with me…this allows me to be THANKFUL & CELEBRATE every crash, boom, craze year – no matter what!

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!