I'm stuck in a bit of a rut in my life. I can't clearly see the wood for the trees and consequently I'm not really sure which things are the causes and which things are the consequences and what I actually need to address.
I have two children who are 5 and almost 2, so the past two years have been fairly demanding, particularly this time last year when I returned to work and was essentially in survival mode for the first 6 months as DC2 was constantly getting ill from nursery and DC1 was having trouble settling into school. However, I would say that despite it being full on at times, I love my children and enjoy them and am a pretty confident and happy in this area of my life.
Work, however, is a different matter. It is a nice place to be, the people are nice and the work is interesting, but I have been in the same role for 4 years now and it is no longer challenging. It is small and there aren't many further opportunities for me, particularly in terms of managing people or projects on a larger scale. I have asked for development opportunities, eg. shadowing projects in a sister organisation, but despite reassurances nothing has materialised. My confidence is starting to drop as I get older and see past colleagues moving up the career ladder, while mine appears to be stagnating. My confidence dropped further when I recently interview for a job which I looked great for on paper, but the interview didn't go well and I didn't get the job. I feel stuck in some ways, as I currently work 4 days per week and have v good annual leave allowance, and it is hard to find anything with similar flexibility out there.
Personally my self esteem and confidence have also dropped. I have put on half a stone in the past few months. I have had cystic acne - no idea why - which is still up and down. I am a member of the gym at work, but only have time to go at lunchtime, and as I don't always get a full lunchtime I tend to go sporadically and therefore just always feel generally unfit.
I don't know if my confidence/self-esteem is low because of lack of career progression, or because of how I look. I don't know how to get time back for myself. Putting DC to bed is a 2-person job, or at least that's how we always do it as DC1 needs to do reading etc and doesn't sleep till 8.30pm and DC2 needs someone to sit there while she falls asleep, which is any time between 7.45pm and 9pm.
Any thoughts on how to lift myself out of this rut would be appreciated. I'm not sure whether I should be looking for new jobs if I'm feeling low like this. And I'm not sure whether I should be trying to spend any free time I can muster doing some kind of exercise programme, or whether I'd be better doing some kind of social hobby.