19// Feeling Stuck in Your Nursing Job: 3 Ways to Get Help with a Nurse Career Coach as an Experienced Nurse

You have been wrestling with that uneasy feeling for a while. You like the work you do but something’s nagging at you that it may be time to make a change. 

Work has been a bit much with constant change, overwhelmed with the amount of work and being pulled in so many directions. 

Imagine if you could get clear on the uncertainty that's holding you back. That's what we're talking about today—the real struggles that experienced nurses face in their professional growth and what can help catapult you to the next level of nursing growth & advancement.

This episode peels back the layers of what it means to be in a comfort zone that's become a little too comfortable, and why it's essential to push beyond that to achieve fulfillment in your career. From enhancing your work strategies to making those tough decisions with a clear head, I'll share several tips to help, whether that's within your current role, transitioning to a new department, or even a different field in nursing. 

So, join me as we embrace these tools and insights, and let's start the journey together towards a career that's not just a job, but a passion.

Transcript

Bonnie Meadows: 0:56

As always, I am speaking on a topic that I've kind of been somewhat avoiding for a little while because I didn't think that it was time yet to start talking about it, but I've had a moment to get on a couple of calls with some nurses and really figure out or discuss or find what is it that you're truly struggling with when you are the one who is teaching other nurses and empowering other nurses to be better at the thing, whatever that thing is, for me it's improving your careers and making sure that you are able to have a career that is impactful and that has purpose and not that what we do on a daily basis as nurses doesn't have a purpose. But some of us feel pulled and called to a greater work in nursing and we feel like we can do more than what we're doing. And I've been there. I'm still there, like I'm still growing. I'm still, but there've just been events that have happened in my career that, as I tell you all of the time, that I believe that I can share those lessons that I've learned, and even lessons that I've learned in coaching others through to help them to better their career, to find joy in nursing, to find that peace that they are looking for in their everyday work while growing their career, work while growing their career. And so in doing that, what I call market research, I even put out a call to the email list. So if you are not subscribed to the email list, please do below. There are some opportunities for you to do that, but I reached out to the email list to see if there was a few people who wanted to jump on a call and just tell me what you're struggling with, because I have my ideas of what you're struggling with, as I have struggled with several things within my career path and in growing my career. But my struggle may not be your struggle, or I may have been able to work through that thing so much that I don't think about it, and that is definitely what I found, and so I want to make sure that I am bringing you information that is relevant, that meets your needs, so that I can help to clear any roadblocks. Like that is my passion.

Bonnie Meadows: 3:49

What frustrates me the most is when a nurse stays someplace because of reasons that they don't have to stay and they're miserable and they're stuck and they're frustrated. Like that frustrates me, because to me, that keeps the profession stagnant, because it then starts to bleed everywhere else. We can do so much great work and we are doing a lot of great work, but I believe that there are more nurses who can step into more of the work that they are feeling pulled and called to do, the greater work, the greater impact that they want to make. But you can't see the forest through the trees. I can see further, but I needed to figure out what is it that's causing you to not be able to see, that's causing you to not be able to see more of what and believe more of what I believe. And so, in my research, I found a resounding reason why people are not growing their careers, or what's causing them to struggle in the process of them wanting to grow their careers, their careers.

Bonnie Meadows: 5:10

Several things that stood out feeling stuck, overwhelmed with just the amount of work that you do on a daily basis, that you don't even have time to even think about your next steps. Fear of failure for stepping out, or fear of I might not get anything, any schedule that's better than what I have now, or whatever the case may be. Or I may not be able to have the seniority that I have now, or I may not be able to do the whatever, and so you're fearful that where you, you might go someplace that's worse than where you are. So you just stay where you are, uncertain about the right direction to go. That's real. That's really real. I've been. I've definitely been there more times than not. The fear thing I definitely got you back Uncertainty about where to go next. I've been there about where to go next. I've been there and I've learned how to work through uncertainty and still have peace, dealing with bad leadership.

Bonnie Meadows: 6:13

So you got bad leadership support and you just you don't even know that there's anything different or that you can have anything different than the terrible leadership that you're dealing with, and then just the daily task of everything just weighing on you. It causes you to be settled and stuck and stagnant and you don't even think about the fact that you should be doing something different. Or you're like I could, but I really like what I do. I mean that's great and all. There are a lot of things that I really love to do, but the question is, is that my place of growth? And so within that, I also want to help you to understand where I come in as your resident nurse career coach.

Bonnie Meadows: 7:10

A nurse career coach can help you with so many of these issues, but a lot of times we don't put that together, and so I'm going to walk you through three ways. A nurse career coach can help you in growing your career. Because we don't that's not something that we hear about every day, or we think, oh, I can figure it out, it's easy Because you know you're thinking like nursing, it has like the regular paths. But, honestly, once you get past an hourly position and you start to go into more salary positions or salary exempt positions or positions that are more so regular eight to five, seven to three. Once you start to work past that, the waters get a little bit muddy and you have to have a little bit more strategy around your plan, and so that's where a nurse career coach can help. So let me go ahead and start with number one.

Bonnie Meadows: 8:13

A nurse career coach can help you to reduce overwhelm. What is that? So, when you are dealing with burnout, you sometimes don't even know that you're dealing with burnout. The overwhelm leads to burnout, but you may be experiencing signs and symptoms that are signs of burnout and you don't know it. But you know something's not right.

Bonnie Meadows: 8:37

Like you don't like going into work. Yeah, you like the work that you do, but you don't like going to work. You might not like going in the building. Like I've been there. I don't like going in the building. I like the work that I do. I just there's something about it. I just don't like there's some resistance here. I don't. I don't feel great about like Pete we joke about oh, it's Monday. I don't feel like this, that and the other. And like you can make progress and that you have a purpose in going into work. Like you looking forward to something at work, and so a career coach can help you to one, identify if you're in burnout and to help you to find ways to manage that burnout. If where you are is not like if you don't want to leave where you are you want to grow like if you don't want to leave where you are, you want to grow but you don't want to leave. So how do you manage that stress? Because you do see other things that you do want to do in life, but you can't do them because you're burnt out, because you're drinking from a fire hose in the work that you are doing on a daily basis drinking from a fire hose in the work that you are doing on a daily basis.

Bonnie Meadows: 9:55

A nurse career coach can help you with developing time management strategies, help you with strategizing the work that you do on a daily basis, help you to really even identify should I be doing this or should I not be doing this In a way that doesn't compromise your integrity, that doesn't compromise your work life, that doesn't compromise your growth, the growth that you are working towards. Nurse career coach can help with that. They can also be a sounding board and a listening ear, because sometimes you just need someone who is not in the situation, to hear you talk through it, and sometimes even you talking through, because then they start to the nurse career coach. They start to ask questions. I ask questions of people and there are certain questions that I ask and they're like hmm, I didn't even think about that or huh, I haven't thought through that, about that, or huh, I haven't thought through that. But it's to lead you down a path of making a decision.

Bonnie Meadows: 10:58

What a nurse career coach will not do is make a decision for you. That's not what they're here to do. They're here to coach you through making a decision for yourself, understanding the options that you already have in front of you, and then, if you want further advice, they're going to give you and help you to work through some strategies. But they totally are able to provide an impartial objective perspective, perspective so they can help you identify potential obstacles that you need to overcome in order to reach your goals. Even if your goal is more time freedom, even if your goal is more autonomy, they can help you with all of that, even if it's figuring out how to approach your boss about a thing, whatever that thing may be. Even if it's figuring out how do I get on the projects that I really like to do to grow, even if it's figuring out oh, I want to do that thing. So what can I do in my current role in order to be able to feel better equipped, build confidence to apply for this other thing that I'm looking towards doing? So that's number one help you to reduce overwhelm. They're helping you to kind of tease out your current situation, work through reducing stress, seeing things objectively and then helping you to build strategy around just your current environment. Because if we can't get you seeing past and clearly through what you're currently in, then you're not going to be able to clearly grow, and then you're going to make what I call this infamous quote that I always hear or that I've heard not always, I actually haven't heard it in a while, but when I heard it before it just stuck with me. You end up making permanent decisions in a temporary situation. Now, sometimes that's necessary, but you need to be able to, before you even make that permanent decision, figure out, see your way out.

Bonnie Meadows: 13:21

Number two a nurse career coach can help you with skill development. We've talked about this in, or I've talked about this and mentioned this in several episodes, especially in pertaining to doing your self assessment and developing self-awareness. When you start to look at your strengths and then your opportunities or sometimes we say, weaknesses. Here's where a nurse career coach can look at your opportunities, weaknesses and your strengths and then say, well, what would you like to do? And if your opportunities don't match up with where you are looking to go, possibly, then they'll say they'll pretty much help you out and say, well, you don't need to work on that. If here is where you're going Now, if you want to go here, if you want to go to this clinical role, then yeah, you need to work on that. But if you're looking to step away from the bedside and go to something that's not a clinical role, then you don't need to work on that.

Bonnie Meadows: 14:26

That is that foresight that a nurse career coach can have, and so they will help you to identify not only identify those skills for growth, but they're also helping you, helping to pull out like your unique talents and skills and helping you to figure out how to leverage them for your career growth. And then they will help you to develop strategies on how to grow that skill. What's the best way to grow that skill? Do you need to take a class? Do you need to talk to someone personally what books do you need to read? And that strategy is to grow skills to expand where you are or to grow skills to be able to make your next move.

Bonnie Meadows: 15:15

Lastly, last thing, they are there to help you to make a plan. If you don't have a nurse career coach that is strategic and they're very cookie cutter in their method, then that is not a nurse career coach to me personally. They should have a strategic mindset to be able to see things very globally, even if they have no clue of what goes on in your organization that you currently work at or the organization that you are going to. And here's a few ways that they will help you to make a plan. One if you're transitioning to a new role or specialty or you're looking to take on a new role within your organization, they can help you to navigate that transition process, prepare for the interviews of what you should expect and then identify any gaps in your skill or knowledge that you need to address with in that transition. Or maybe you don't even know. You know you want to step outside of or do something totally different. Then they'll help you to identify certain job postings that would be good for you to prepare for, maybe even career fairs, networking opportunities, professional organizations you might need to get connected to when you are transitioning from maybe one specialty to another, from a role that's totally different. Maybe you're going from specialized to general, or from general to specialized, or maybe you're going to a totally different setting. You are in a clinical role Now you want to go into risk management, or you're in a clinical role and now you want to go into quality, or you want to go into safety, and, yes, you can qualify yourselves for those type of roles. Coming from the bedside, coming from a clinical space, you can do it.

Bonnie Meadows: 17:21

Two under make a plan is they will help you in developing your leadership skills. So, again, they're identifying areas of improvement that you will need in order to be an effective leader. Remember, leadership and management are not, they're two different things. So, career coaches they may or may not help you with learning how to deal with disciplinary actions of such. That's not my specialty. But I can tell you when you need to go to HR and when you don't.

Bonnie Meadows: 17:56

I can help you, as a career coach, to develop as a leader, because a leader, according to John Maxwell, is a person of influence. Leadership is influence. That is my special sauce of helping you to develop your influence in situations, because all of my leadership roles have been leadership of influence, not of management, although there are some managers who I've given advice to about dealing with people so I tend to be very versatile. As a career coach, I've just had a lot of opportunities to talk to different people, to be in different situations, to help people walk through that process and then, lastly, under, make a plan.

Bonnie Meadows: 18:52

The nurse career coach can help you to clarify your goals. So if you kind of look at how I walked through this, I said first you need to reduce your overwhelm I'm coming back to clarifying your career goals. You need to reduce your overwhelm. I'm coming back to clarifying your career goals. You need to reduce your overwhelm so that you can then identify your skills for development and then from there you can make a plan. But until you reduce your overwhelm you're not going to be able to make a solid plan and identify your true career goals. It's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs that stress and that overwhelm like that is the baseline of your safety net, as the bottom of your psychological and physiological needs that need to be met before you can do anything else, and so once you get to this point, they can then help you to clarify your career goals.

Bonnie Meadows: 19:48

So if you're one of those people who's like, yeah, I don't really know what my career goals are at this point, then you either may be at the point of being stuck and overwhelmed, or you've gotten past that place. You kind of see what skills and opportunities that you have, but you just are not aware of the opportunities that are available for you to advance, to grow, and that is where the career coach can help you to see oh okay, you have these skills and abilities, here's some options for you and here's where you might wanna go with your goals, according to those things that you find that you have a passion for. This can be done in ways of them helping you to identify long-term goals and short-term goals, and so this process is especially helpful for nurses, who are feeling stuck and unsure of their next steps. They need to develop a job search strategy, or either you're working through to build confidence in your abilities, and so that's where a nurse career coach can help you to clarify your career goals. So, walking back, through three ways a nurse career coach can help you. They can help you with reducing overwhelm, developing your skills and making a plan for your career.

Bonnie Meadows: 21:17

Overall, a career coach can be a very valuable resource for nurses who are looking to advance their careers, overcome obstacles or just simply gain clarity on professional goals. Like there is just peace from at least having clarity on what is my next step. Otherwise, you just have a stirring there and you just don't know what to do with it. That's where a nurse career coach comes in, and so I want to invite you to join me on a one-on-one call where we can work through these things. We can work through figuring out how to reduce your overwhelm. We can work through your skill development. We can work through making a strategic plan for your career. We can work through your fears, your anxieties you have about anything, or if it's just one of those things of I don't know what I need help with, but I know I need help. Feel free to join a call with me and we can walk through those next steps to help you move forward and grow your career. See you next time.

Bonnie Meadows: 22:31

Thanks for joining us this week on the Ambitious Nurse Podcast To review the show notes and any links mentioned in today's episode. Please go to theambitiousnursepodcastcom If you enjoyed this conversation, follow or subscribe so you don't miss a future episode. Also, please consider leaving a rating, review and or comment about what you want to hear. This helps more nurses, just like you find this podcast. Thank you for joining me, bonnie Meadows, on the Ambitious Nurse Podcast. I look forward to chatting with you the next time. And remember you don't have to grow your career alone. As iron sharpens iron, one person sharpens another. Thank you for letting me sharpen you as you take this knowledge to sharpen the next.