Christmas, the New Year, and the Career Questions Women Can No Longer Ignore

Introduction

Christmas and the New Year often arrive with a strange mix of relief and reckoning.

Work slows for a week or two - and in that space, questions surface that are much easier to ignore the rest of the year. In my experience, many people keep themselves busy specifically to avoid deeper, often existential questions until they absolutely have to face them.

For many women, this isn’t about ambition or even clear career dissatisfaction. It’s about an inner knowing that something no longer fits - or that they no longer fit where they once belonged.

For many Australian women, the Christmas–New Year period creates a natural pause that brings suppressed career questions to the surface.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• Why career questions often surface at the end of the year

• What this feeling is really pointing to

• Why clarity doesn’t need to come first

• How holistic career counselling can help

Why Career Questions Surface at Christmas and New Year

For many Australian women, the end of the year creates:

• Space to reflect

• Emotional contrast between rest and work

• A sense of ‘I can’t do another year like this’

Career dissatisfaction often becomes more visible during periods of rest, when habitual busyness no longer suppresses deeper reflection.

Holidays also bring time with family, which for many women is emotionally charged. In my experience, it is often our family - unintentionally - who keep us stuck.

Why? Because our self-talk, career narratives, and decision-making patterns are deeply shaped by our family of origin. These inherited messages often operate invisibly, creating a kind of mental gridlock that is difficult to move through without reflection - and sometimes counselling.

This end of year discomfort is not failure. It is perspective.

What Does It Mean to Feel Called Toward Something Else?

This feeling is often described as:

• Restlessness without a clear solution

• Fatigue that isn’t just physical

• Longing for work that feels more honest or socially just

• Asking ‘What is my purpose?’ because it feels like you no longer have one

Feeling drawn toward something else does not necessarily mean you need to change careers or start again from scratch.

Instead, it often means your future self - and future life - feels like a blank canvas. For many women, this is daunting because it means autopilot, overwork, and running on coffee fumes will no longer work.

This feeling usually signals a need to realign work - both paid and unpaid - with the current and emerging version of yourself.

Three Common Reasons This Feeling Emerges in Mid-Life for Women

1. Your values have shifted

Life changes. Work changes. Relationships change. And so do you.

Mid-life is a common time for values realignment, where what once mattered no longer holds the same weight.

2. Your capacity has changed

Children grow and leave. Parents need support. Hormones shift, sometimes spectacularly. And many women are simply exhausted. All. The. Time.

Capacity changes are a normal part of mid-life, even when capability remains high.

3. Your career identity hasn’t caught up with your life

These layered changes often lead to identity shifts, which many women experience as imposter syndrome.

Career identity lag is a common cause of feeling stuck in mid-life, especially for women with complex lives and responsibilities.

Each of these deserves attention before action. Action without reflection often leads to quick, unsustainable fixes - and before long, you’re having a Groundhog Day moment six or twelve months later.

You deserve better than that.

Why Rushing to ‘Fix’ Your Career Can Make Things Worse

The pressure to set goals or make decisions in January often pushes women back into familiar patterns - including those shaped by family expectations and early conditioning.

Too often, I see women jump into the post-holiday rush to secure a new job without the reflection or counselling they actually need. When it doesn’t work out, they blame themselves, feel more like an imposter, and lose confidence they can ill afford to lose.

Rushed career decisions made without reflection often recreate the same problems in a new role.

This is why I advise caution with traditional SMART goals at this stage of life.

In a complex and volatile job market - where you control neither hiring decisions nor structural change - SMART goals can unintentionally set women up to feel like they’re failing.

Instead, I use a more holistic framework I developed for women: SOUL goals.

SOUL stands for:

• Strengths

• Opportunity

• Upgrade

• Love

This framework helps women focus on what they can control and reframes career development as something that serves them - not something they must contort themselves to meet.

Insight precedes clarity.
Understanding precedes change.

How Holistic Career Counselling Supports This Transition

Holistic career counselling offers:

• Space to reflect without urgency

• Questions that reveal what’s really happening

• Support that honours your capacity and season of life

Holistic career counselling helps women make sense of career dissatisfaction by addressing identity, values, capacity, and life context together.

This is especially important in a tight job market, where reactive decisions can be costly.

Career narratives are deeply entwined with broader life stories. Sometimes the story we carry supports us - but often, through counselling, women realise it no longer does. Re-writing that narrative can be profoundly liberating.

I like to think of career and life as a choose-your-own-adventure book. There is always more than one path, more than one story, more than one way forward.

Exploring those possibilities therapeutically can be incredibly supportive - especially for women navigating mid-life transitions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this just a New Year phase?

Sometimes the timing is seasonal — but the feeling itself is usually real. If ignored, it tends to return the moment life slows again.

Recurring career dissatisfaction is often a signal that deeper alignment work is needed.

Do I need to change jobs immediately?

No. Understanding comes before movement.

Can career counselling help even if the job market is tough?

Yes. In fact, clarity and alignment matter even more when options feel limited.

If this article resonates and you’d like support making sense of where you are — without rushing answers — you may find a Soul Strategy Call helpful.