HELLO
Happy New Year! Have you made any resolutions yet? No, they never work, do they? If you make a New Year's Resolution, you've only got a 12% chance of it lasting past January. But if you plan a career break, you've got a 70% chance of going - this year!
If that's got you excited (and it's certainly got us excited) start searching for a career break right away!
**NEW CAREER BREAKS**
All our new and updated career breaks can be found here: http://www.thecareerbreaksite.com/new-career-breaks
FREE STUFF ROUND-UP
Free personalised pen - perfect for taking down the number of the backpacker you fancy when your phone's died.
Free photo book from Snapfish - a great way to display pictures of your career break when you've returned.
Free calls from a number of foreign countries to the UK if you're a Three customer.
Free £2 voucher for mp3s from Amazon - get yourself some nice tunes to listen to on your travels!
**NEW** DISCOUNTED STUFF ROUND-UP
We have a new exclusive discount on our site for this Teach and earn in China project, provided by Oyster Worldwide.
This came as a DM on Twitter from the Sunday Times Travel Mag: "Gr8 deal 4new followers 6 issues/£10 (55% off). Code TW12 (exp 4 Jan) ow.ly/pWPDR" - horribly written but we'll forgive them as it's a good deal.
If you see a travel or work related freebie or discount, email info@thecareerbreaksite.com and you'll get a special mention in next month's newsletter!
CAREER BREAKS STARTING SOON
Here's a list of career breaks starting in the next 3 months.
PHOTO CORNER - YOUR MONTHLY DOSE OF INSPIRATION
Travel photographer of the year awards [BBC link - slideshow]
ON THE BLOG
Especially for the New Year, we have a post on how to overcome procrastination. If you've got your own tips, please share them in the comments!
Typhoon Yolanda may be a distant memory to you, but it's still massively affecting the people of the Philippines. But is the money you donate really going to the right people? Here's an article on where the aid to the Philippines is really ending up.
In Travellers' Tales, we have the story of one person's rather odd career break Christmas in New Zealand.
Finally, something we've never done on the blog before - a poem. Called Ernest's Presentation, it tells the story of a man who - well, you'll have to read it to find out. Hopefully it'll inspire you to make some changes!
All these, and the rest of our blog posts, can be found here: http://www.thecareerbreaksite.com/blog. If you'd like to be interviewed for the blog, or you're itching to show off your journalistic skills by writing a guest post, email info@thecareerbreaksite.com.
TIP OF THE MONTH
If you really want to make a New Year's Resolution you can keep, make it tiny and easy to achieve. So instead of 'give up drinking, smoking and checking Facebook 86 times a day,' pick one thing and reduce it by a tiny amount. Achieving that might give you the impetus to do even more, rather than give up at the first hurdle!
If you have a tip for us, email info@thecareerbreaksite.com - we will credit you unless you want to stay anonymous.
USEFUL THING OF THE MONTH
Do you want to put your video on loads of sites but haven't got time to upload it everywhere? OneLoad does it all for you (yes, they have a free option).
FUN THING
Funny animals of 2013 - in pictures (it's from the Guardian so you can pretend it's real news).
JOKE
There's no wind or rain forecast for the next few days, so the Met Office are advising everyone to make unnecessary journeys.
FINALLY
If you know someone who really needs to change their life this year, why not forward them this email? You'll be doing them a favour!
See you next month!
Love,
The Career Break Site
xxx