The Ambitious Nurse | RN, Nursing Career, Nursing Job Opportunities
Are you feeling stuck in your current clinical environment? Maybe you want a change because you're too exhausted, burned out, or ready for different leadership. Do you want to make a change in your clinical career, but you're not sure what to do next?
You're in the right place. This podcast will help you get the clarity you need to grow so you can have the flexibility and autonomy you want while leveraging your voice and expertise.
I'm Bonnie Meadows a Board Certified Clinical Nurse Specialist, Influential Leader, Career Coach & Well-Being Coach. Since being in the nursing & healthcare profession since 2004, I have found myself ready to make the next step but felt stuck.
I got to a place where I dreaded going to work. I felt burnt out and unmotivated. I knew deep down I always wanted something else. But I had no clue how to even with the hope of a graduate degree to advance me.
I finally realized that growing in nursing is about the journey and not the destination. I finally stopped looking for a specific job to fill my cup.
I developed a framework I frequently implemented to get the clarity I needed for my career and catapulted me into areas of nursing and healthcare I never imagined. I am sharing it all with you.
If you are ready to find career strategies crafted as an experienced nurse using your gifts and abilities,
A guide to help you get clear on your next career steps,
Contentment and joy in your work-this podcast is for you!!
So get ready to kick off those Crocs, pop in those earbuds, and let's chat!!
The Ambitious Nurse | RN, Nursing Career, Nursing Job Opportunities
29 // How to Set Boundaries and Reduce Overwhelm in Your Nursing Job
Can you imagine finding joy in your nursing career while maintaining financial stability, even during the strenuous summer months?
By establishing boundaries, you can achieve greater flexibility and autonomy, focusing on what truly matters professionally and personally.
From feeling overwhelmed in your role to finding a job that aligns with your aspirations, we explore how you can gain clarity. I also delve into managing ego, creating a succession plan, and recognizing when it's time to move on to new opportunities.
If you're struggling with boundaries, this episode is just for you.
Want to continue the conversation? Send me a text right here.
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Money is important, but money is not everything. I know it's weird starting off the podcast episode that way, but I say that to say this episode is dropping in the middle of summer, and what is also just as important as money is your peace and your joy in work, and so I am coming to you in this episode to talk about the combination of creating boundaries and creating joy in your work. I'll probably talk a little bit more about boundaries just to kind of help you to really wrap your head around what we can and can't do. It's an episode of permission, of thinking about things a little bit differently and then just analyzing am I doing these things that help to prevent me from having joy in the work that I do, or do I just really not like what I do and I might need to move on to something else? But I can't see the forest through the trees. So that's what we're going to talk about on today.
Speaker 1:Are you feeling stuck in your current clinical environment? Do you want to make a change in your nursing career but not sure what to do next, exhausted, burnt out and maybe even ready for different leadership? I'm Bonnie Meadows, a board-certified clinical nurse, specialist, influential leader, career coach and well-being coach. Being in the nursing and healthcare profession since 2004, I have felt stuck and unsure about what was next for me. I wanted to be fulfilled in my purpose, to have a voice at the table and to be a resource for others. I kept telling myself I wanted more, but didn't have the direction I needed, until I found Clarity and Career Growth Strategies for Experienced Nurses Like Me. In this podcast. You will find simple, tactical steps that allow you to gain the clarity you need, solutions for how to grow even without supportive leadership, and guidelines for setting boundaries at work, so that you can grow purposefully in your career as a nurse with a graduate degree who makes a huge impact in the profession. So get ready to trade your scrubs for yoga pants, pop in those earbuds and let's chat. I heard someone tell me that boundaries provide flexibility, which is very true, and many nurses have told me that what they desire most in their work and in their career as they progress is more flexibility, more autonomy.
Speaker 1:As we grow in our careers, we either are getting into more things or we have families that are growing and we want to be able to still do career and do other things on top of that, but not be all consuming by work, because you can only go that fast, but for so long, and many times, when you're that deep in, you can't see the forest from the trees and you look up and you're five years in and you're like, oh God, what did I do? All this time You've been doing the work, but then you feel like you're on a hamster wheel. I just want to help you to reflect on are you on the hamster wheel and what are some possible ways to get off of that hamster wheel? This episode is more so focused on am I on the hamster wheel and is that why I don't have clarity? Is that why I don't have joy in my work? And then, what are some small ways that I can shift my mind to get off of the hamster wheel? Once you understand what you're saying yes to and what you're saying no to, you could then go deeper in the area where you want to grow. But you can't be everywhere and doing everything and nothing matches up. So just think on that.
Speaker 1:I was doing a coaching with a nurse a few months ago and it was a quick, free coaching session. You'd be amazed at what we can get through talk through during those sessions. But in that particular session she was toying, which many of us. This is what we do. We're toying with the idea of wanting like. We know we want to do something different. We have gotten the vision of what we want our life to look like, but we're trying to figure out what we can do to help it match up. She had some goals they were personal goals and career goals but what she was currently doing wasn't matching up with where she wanted to go. In that particular conversation she talked about a few roles she was interested in.
Speaker 1:One of the things I like to do in a coaching session is to get an idea of what you might be interested in. Then I dig a. I like to do in a coaching session is to get an idea of what you might be interested in, then dig a little bit deeper on why you're interested in that particular thing, help you understand what comes with it, what might be required, maybe to think about some things you may not have thought about before. That would either push you in that direction to take the leap, or help you reevaluate. Maybe that's not the direction you really want to go, and then we just figure out another direction that might be a better fit. So, within this particular conversation, I gave her some ideas on things that she can possibly do, and she had like one or two areas that she wanted to do and then both required some sort of certification or either another degree in some area. I think both of them required just more so another certification, and so we talked about those things hung up. That was it, and I checked in on her a month later.
Speaker 1:Now, one of the things that she was struggling with was boundaries with work, because she wasn't. She was overwhelmed at work, not being able to get things done in a timely manner. Not because of her, it's just. This is what we do in nursing and this is just kind of how the setting is now to pretty much just be like we should all leave nursing. Y'all know I love me some nurses and I love the work of nursing, but we've got to do a better job of setting boundaries, even with our patients. Even with our patients, we've got to do a better job of speaking up and saying, hey, this doesn't work and bring a solution with that. So I digressed. Let me come back.
Speaker 1:I checked in on our month later and she said well, I ended up losing my job. My daughter overheard our conversation. I have a family member who works for a particular area. I ended up getting a job in that particular area and they pay for my certification, that particular specialty that she was wanting to pursue. Had that conversation with you, I would not have had the opportunity that I had, but I could not see I was so. I was so focused in and so underneath what I was in, that I just didn't even have the strength, the, just the, the desire to do what I needed to do to get out from under where I was. And so I want more of us to be proactive versus reactive in our careers.
Speaker 1:We're reactive when we've gotten to the point where we're frustrated, we're bitter, we come to work mad, all for the sake of the patient or because we just don't know what else we're going to do next. That's when we're reactive with our careers. Now, sometimes we have to be because we're in a situation. I mean I've probably acted reactively in my career, maybe once or twice, but it still yielded well for me. I was still very calculated in my decisions, but I almost I feel like my career life was probably like my dating life, like I was very proactive, like if there was a guy I didn't like. I was looking for some signs and I was out quickly and me and my best friend joke and we say, oh well, you might can get me good for a good year, but after that if I see some signs that this ain't working out, I'm out. Now I'm now married, got a good man, so thank God for that.
Speaker 1:But I want you to be proactive in your career, and it doesn't necessarily mean proactive jumping from one job to another and always to another, but it's proactive in making sure that you're in a place where you can grow, making sure that you see signs of growth and your leadership working towards some space of growing and helping you to grow and setting an atmosphere where you can grow. Only you have the best interest at heart for you. Only you can speak up for yourself. Only you know what your heart desire is. Only you know what you like and what you don't like. And not that we are always guaranteed to do things that we like at work. But you don't want to get into a place again where you are bitter, frustrated, trying to figure you've got, you've got a stirring and you're ignoring the stirring, although you still like the people that you work with and you still pretty much enjoy the work that you do. But you're now you're drifting like you fill a pool somewhere else.
Speaker 1:I want to just kind of walk through some reasons why we don't listen and we are reactive. Here's some other reasons. We tell ourselves there's no one else to do the work, so we've been doing this work for a while. You know, we've taken these projects on, or and this is in particular for the nurse with the master's degree or the doctorate degree, or you are working as a nurse at the bedside and you're very much embedded into all of the things. You might be an assistant nurse manager, you might be a clinical supervisor, you might be involved in a lot of projects and you may have a master's degree, but still at the bedside and you're just trying to figure out. You're taking on these other things, hoping for a promotion, but you're not finding joy at work. We've probably taken on too much and we tell ourselves there's no one else to do the work. So I guess I'll just do it.
Speaker 1:I'm just I'm frustrated, but I'm still doing all this work because there's no one else to do the work. There's no one else to do the work and, truth be told, you don't have the capacity to do the work either. But you've not said anything because you don't want anyone to think that you can't do the work. You just don't have the capacity to do the work. You don't want to let anyone down. And when you say, oh, I don't want to let anyone down, you're letting yourself down. So you might not be letting them down, but now you're letting yourself down. Letting yourself down so you might not be letting them down, but now you're letting yourself down and you are now frustrated, stressed, snapping at family. All of that because you've taken on all of this and you've not set boundaries and honestly, like this trickles down because you've been given the work that somebody else doesn't even have the capacity to do. I just want you to recognize these things and understand the constraints in which we work. And even if you decide to stay where you are, let's figure out some ways to make the best of it. Let's figure out some ways to do something a little bit differently. And again, we don't want to sound like we can't do the work, so we don't ask for help, but then we end up stressed and snapping at people when we give ourselves these excuses, we don't have the compassion for ourselves.
Speaker 1:Compassion, presence and recovery are three elements that I've been taught in my training for being a well-being coach. So I am a well-being coach and those are the three elements that we talk about, and I got my coaching from a well-known coach, ms Diane Sig, who has her own well-being coaching program, boundaries under the umbrella of compassion and having compassion on yourself and speaking positively to yourself and understanding your realities in which you are actually living, and uncovering that which is unrealistic, in which you do every day, whether it be at home or whether it be at work. They affect one another. That is that compassion that you need to have on yourself in order to lift that burden and to have a little bit more joy in your life and to see things just a little bit differently. When we don't have that compassion for ourselves, we tend to blame ourselves for the work, when in actuality, it's just not possible. We make ourselves think that it's possible. It's not, it's really not and that's why you don't have joy in work and this here summer, you need to find a way to have some joy at work, need to find a way. I'm just here to make it evident to you and known to you, so that you can start to reflect on better ways to have joy at work. Things have possibly slowed down. It's summer, more people are off this, that and the other, so this is your time to really take a little bit of a step back and really think about what is it that's causing me to not have joy at work? Here's why we need to set some boundaries so that we can clearly see what we like, what we don't like about the work that we do, so that we can see ways to make the work we do better. Especially if we like the work, like I, want you to stay in it. Make yourself known in that area, make yourself the subject matter expert.
Speaker 1:We must set boundaries so that we can clearly see ways to remove our ego from the process and engage others. Ooh, is your ego at play and that's why you're overwhelmed. Oh, I'm the only one that can do the work. I'm the like. My name is attached to this. I understand ego. I'm not pointing fingers because I've had an ego and it has been broken down. It has been broken down not by others, but God has literally placed me in a position to where it's just like it's not that serious, and I have been able to make a name for myself by just doing the work, being engaged and letting it go, not dropping a ball, but just pretty much saying how can we make this process better? Even if I'm not the one at the table that knows the work in depth, I know how to move the chess pieces around, and so how do we remove our ego from the process and engage others so that we can get more joy at work, so that we can build support around us, because other people want to get in on that work, and so that we can create a succession plan, because you don't want to be doing that same thing forever.
Speaker 1:Lastly, we must set boundaries so that we can clearly see and know when it's time to hold them, fold them and walk away to our next. We can't be so tightly bound to something that we're afraid to just pass it on to someone else and then we stay there longer than we should, and then people are looking at you and looking around like when is she leaving? Because she's holding us up. He's holding us up for making progress in this thing. Don't stay somewhere longer than you should, holding up someone else from being able to have an opportunity in that space, but then you're holding yourself up from being able to have opportunity in another space where you have a bigger voice at the table. You're shooing that because you're looking at this thing that you've been holding on to Set those boundaries so that you know when to hold them, when to fold them and when to walk away to your next. If you need help with those boundaries, you know where to find me. I have one-on-one coaching that is available. Feel free to sign up for some time and we can walk through ways that you can set boundaries within your work, because I've been there.
Speaker 1:I've been overwhelmed. I've had to set boundaries. I've had to figure out like, what is absolutely that? I what I need to do, versus like I don't really need to do this, I don't really need to do this, and present it in a way to where you're not you're saying no, but you're saying no and providing options at the same time.
Speaker 1:So I hope that you take this episode, really reflect on how do you create more joy at work by setting boundaries and not getting bitter with it. There's a way to do it. There's a way to say no that is appropriate. There's a way to do it. There's a way to say no, that is appropriate. There's a way to shift responsibility.
Speaker 1:That's hard for me, because when there are just lots of great things going on, I want to raise my hand for everything. Oh, I'll do that, oh, I'll do that. And then I find myself in a not so great position and not enjoying the space that I'm in because I'm doing too many things. I just don't want anyone to think that they have to stay where they are and they have to be miserable. See you next time. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with another nurse who may be unsure of where to go next in their career or maybe need some career clarity? Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple Podcast. It brings me so much joy and so much encouragement to know this podcast is helping you. Now go get the career you want and not the one you settle for, and I'll meet you back here next Thursday for another episode. See you soon.
