For me December and January has been a time of big reflections and changes. I know it's cliche to say out with the old in with the new especially around that time of year but it was wonderful just what a couple of weeks of downtime can do for your state of mind. Over the Christmas period I decided to have some time off - I was determined to spend it with the family and although I worked boxing day and New Year's Eve it felt ok - I made the conscious decision not to work anymore than those two days. Within that time I started thinking about the year, as you do, and where it was all heading career wise for me. This year I started work in the care industry taking on two different types of jobs within the care sector. I am so glad that I did it and have no regrets - the whole experience overall has been a positive one - however it has been hard working late into the evenings, working on the weekends and then there's a whole lot of admin work to be completed once my hours at work have finished, not to mention the emotional side effects. I started to feel totally consumed by it all - my work life lives via emails so I'm constantly checking my phone. The Summer holidays were a fine example of this whereby we went camping - there was little signal at the campsite and therefore found myself walking around in the dead of night looking wifi just to check shifts and pick up work on my phone - and then to be told the shifts had already been snapped up - so I was frustrated that I had lost work when I should have been totally disconnected from my phone enjoying wifi free time with my family. This was the tip of the iceberg for me - within work I started to feel less confident when I should have been feeling assertive in my role. Nearer the end of the year I took on a care job at a local care home. Ideally I was hoping to fit the hours around my other job - it was a totally different job and I loved that idea of jumping from one work to another but I just couldn't help that nagging feeling that this industry just wasn't for me. I was lacking passion and enthusiasm and more importantly confidence. In all the jobs I have done previously I can say I have always been confident in my role - and I wasn't feeling this at all. By December my confidence had shattered and it was seemingly spilling over into my personal life. I felt really inadequate and low in myself lacking motivation. Going to do the weekly shop or school run became a huge hurdle that I couldn't seem to face. I decided that it was time to change jobs  if I could - I had this hankering to go back into admin. I loved my previous job but took up work in the care sector because I wanted a more rewarding and challenging job. Yes my job has been both that - but it had also been a rather thankless one. Not once had anybody said 'thanks - you have done a great job today' - and sometimes that's all it takes to know that you are doing 'ok'. I applied for a few jobs at the beginning of January genuinely not expecting anything to come from it but surprisingly was offered an interview. The interview was probably the worst interview I have taken part in - and yet they offered me the post! They even admitted my interview wasn't the best they had seen - but they realised the potential there and saw (somewhere) that I possessed the skills need for the role. After I had chatted to the interviewee about this I felt a weight lift from my shoulders - for the first time in a year it felt as though someone just patted me on the back and said - 'you're doing ok - we recognise that'. It really goes along way.