Oh dear what can the matter be?

I definitely have the Monday blues today.  It has been a nice but tiring weekend.  I just don’t feel motivated at all to work.  I know I work best under pressure but I seem to be resisting giving in to the mountains of work I have, which in turn only makes the mountains higher! Not a good plan!

I came to the conclusion when chatting with my friend that I am completely institutionalised by this job.  I have stopped being able to see a world of work outside of it and I really need to!  I have a good English degree from a Russell Group university, I am not stupid but i cannot think of a job where I can have a similar salary and reasonable holidays.  My friends who work in the private sector still work hard but they have balance…something I strive towards but consistently fail to achieve.  I feel immense pressure from my job but there are aspects of it I adore.  In an attempt to inspire myself I have tried to remember what I wanted to be when the world was still full of hope and possibility. As a little one I dreamed of working in the theatre, be it on-stage or behind the scenes…in some ways teaching is similar…just not quite so glamorous! Sadly however I didn’t have the confidence to go for that dream, i guess I still could i just would not know where to start.

I then toyed with being a lawyer, probably inspired more by Ally McBeal than Crime and Punishment if I’m honest but again my belief in myself let me down. I didn’t think I was bright enough to get the A-levels to get in to an LLB course (ironically of course as sod’s law dictates I did) and yet again gave up on that idea.  However still interested in the Law I took Psychology at A-Level and adored it apart from the statistics element of the course which utterly terrified me (maths was never my forte) so wussed out of doing it.

I took English at degree level with the utopian dream of being a journalist or critic.  I loved my course but was dogged with mental health difficulties throughout my degree (chronic anxiety) which meant that once again I did not have enough confidence in my abilities and coping mechanism to put myself in a challenging and new environment (essentially London). I also doubted my own talents and was sure I simply was too ignorant and uninformed to make it as a journalist.  I look back at these mistakes and feel so frustrated by myself.

Is it too late at 31 to make a change? I feel so restricted by my lifestyle for example supporting my husband, mortgage, pets, ageing parents, students, that I cannot see the wood for the trees and certainly cannot see any other path.  I love learning but cannot afford to go back to university.  So what can I do?

Answers on a postcard please!