New Year's Motivations!

Christmas could not have been nicer this year. I managed to get enough days off work to travel back down south to see all of the family and even some of my oldest friends. For a lot of people New Year celebrations are almost, or sometimes even more, important than Christmas but now that I am again ensconced in our cosy flat (under lots of blankets and with the fire on!) I feel ready to hibernate for the rest of the winter and not even come out of my burrow to go to any Hogmanay parties!

It has been a very busy few months with moving and, even after settling in, there hasn’t been one free day to relax, unpack all of my precious little knick knacks (which are normally the first thing that I put out when arriving in a new flat as it makes me feel so at home) and enjoy being where we are now. After the seven hour drive back to Edinburgh yesterday evening, and once we had brought all of our lovely new presents in from the car (more on them in the next post), I immediately felt like I was ready to not venture far from our new home again in some time. Luckily we have lots of visitors booked in for the next couple of months so I won’t become a complete hermit, and there’s always my job to keep me getting out of bed. What I am most looking forward to doing with my free time in the next few weeks is to reclaim some dreams which have been put on the back burner whilst I prioritised finding a job and settling in.

Now that I am more used to working full time I am adamant that I will join a choir, find a dance group, register at the library and rekindle my love for swimming and make it a regular activity. I suppose the New Year bug has bitten me after all, despite not being very interested in celebrating it this year. This New Year's Eve I am most likely to be found scouring the web for blogging inspiration, researching local things to get involved in and finding some time to look for jobs in publishing again.

I think the latter in particular is something I need to do to keep myself motivated in my café job. If I am striving to find something that I am really interested in getting into, whether it is a full time job, an internship or even volunteering, I think I will feel more free to really enjoy my time at the café for what it is whilst also knowing that it won’t be forever (for more on my ideas for staying motivated in temporary employment see my guest post on Charade).

I want to keep my well honed job hunting techniques fresh in my mind and to maintain the confidence that I found in going to interviews before I got my current job. If I do this and attend as many book clubs, writers groups, literary events and book signings as possible I will keep my passion for publishing alive and also get my face ‘out there’ and on the scene!

I feel really excited about all of the opportunities that will be open to me in the year to come if I just keep my finger on the pulse and, as a very wise man once advised me, ‘get into the groove’.

What are you most excited about in 2012? If you have any thoughts or advice on job hunting, interviews, the publishing industry or staying motivated please don’t be shy and comment!