Melbourne... until next year

[caption id="attachment_20" align="alignnone" width="300"] Docklands at night[/caption] Melbourne, what a wonderful city. 2012, what a phenomenal year.

2012 has been all about adventure, growth, travel and experience.

One of the key challenges for this year was how could this possibly get better. How could we find new and exciting ways to spend our time and still be 'excited' about what we are doing.

My time is broken up into three categories, like most people, one is work. One is social. One is me time.

My passion for life is derived from three sources. Adventure, creativity and challenge. Trying to incorporate an element of each into my three core time brackets is always tricky.

Work, this is usually the biggest challenge. However 2012 started with a huge amount of adventure, a corporate road-show of Europe. Loads of travel and exciting events had that portion covered.

Creativity is sometimes the thing that is so difficult to find present in your '9-5' and fortunately for me this is not so much the case. 2012 was all about innovation. Where to, how and with what. All difficult questions to answer without being creative. Being able to find such a large portion of my time back in 'entrepreneur' mode, helping centre my focus around creating new products and platforms, being involved in design processes, process mapping for business functions and overall business strategy has kept my cup full in terms of creative outlet - probably much to the detriment of this blog! In general the mobile industry has never been so exciting, with so many 'headline acquisitions' and success stories its been a great year to demonstrate the value of this space. The technology just keeps getting better and better and the talent that I am seeing is just amazing. Limitless potential sounds like marketing garb, but I can think of no better descriptor of the mobile industry.

Challenge, or challenges. This is so difficult to avoid for me, but something I am learning to be more fearless with. All to often in a work capacity we become cynical or down-trodden. We look to get by and not get past. Accepting things as they are and not challenging convention.

Looking back on 2012 I can honestly feel like I have taken up challenge and been the better for it. Without risk, there can be no reward.

Socially, incorporating creativity and challenge is never a problem, I have been blessed with a fantastic group of people to surround myself with the world over. Adventure ensues. Finding new ways we can continue to embrace life, our health and happiness together was a big focus of 2012. Helping push each other to perform better in all aspects of our lives and have fun along the way was a recurring theme. I am happy to have had such a positive year socially. Even with the eventual 'ageing' of the flock, we have managed to just keep doing what we love and making the time to get better at this whole thing in the process. So thanks to the many people I hold dear for being there for a great year.

The me time is always the least attended to (this blog another shining example), but its definitely a key focus for me in 2013.

Health and fitness, creative pursuits and social contribution are things I look forward to writing about as the year unfolds. Pushing the growth of business and being better scaled in all areas are things I am aiming for.

As I get older I am learning the importance of maximising our time here, being able to balance work, life, health and relationships doesn't get easier, we just get better at it.

Have a fantastic Christmas and an amazing New Year!