As I mentioned last year, I don't set out to make New Year's resolutions anymore. After 25 years, I've learned enough about myself to know that I can't be that easily motivated to spend a year sticking to a plan I made in a day.
Instead, I find it's often a lot more productive to look back at the most meaningful experiences I had over the year, the experiences that taught me, stretched me, and improved me.
A lot happend this year. Too many to list in one place, but launching Shoflow deserves special mention. It was by far one of the most exciting and rewarding things I've done professionally. It taught me how difficult and fulfilling it can be to build something from scratch and get people to use it. Bringing even the simplest ideas across the finish line isn't as easy as it looks, and answering questions like "When is this thing finished enough to be called an MVP?" is really more art than science.
For the first time, I started to feel what it was like to be completely invested in my work, as though it was a part of me. I forewent social activities to work on it. I even got frustrated when I couldn't make time for it. That's when I realized my work no longer felt like work, and that's such an incredibly good feeling to have.
Here's to more of those feelings in 2013. It's going to be a great year.
