43// All Work and No Play? How to Rest, Reset, and Recharge Before 2025 for Experienced Nurses

The end of the year is here, and it’s time to shift gears. As ambitious nurses, we often feel the pressure to go hard year-round, but recovery and rest are vital for long-term success and well-being. In this episode, I’m sharing how I plan to wind down the year with intention, balance work and play, and set the foundation for a purposeful 2025.

I’ll reflect on my experiences from 20 years of nursing, from slower patient volumes during the holidays to setting boundaries for recovery. You’ll hear how I create space for relaxation, creativity, and goal-setting while enjoying holiday traditions and family time.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why “all work and no play” isn’t sustainable—and how to embrace rest.
• The importance of setting boundaries and aligning with leadership priorities.
• Simple holiday recovery strategies, like travel, music, and movement.
• How I approach intentional goal-setting for personal, professional, and financial growth.
• A practical call-to-action to help you reset and recharge.

Ready to take the next step in your nursing career with confidence?
The Nursing Growth Starter Guide gives you proven strategies to move past uncertainty and advance with clarity.

Grab your free guide today! Click Here


Join me for a **1:1 Nurse Career Clarity Coaching Call**—a 1:1 coaching session where we’ll get you unstuck and find clarity to make the next move in your career.

Transcript

0:03

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 Nurse. 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. It is time to officially start winding down the year. We are pretty much at the end of the year. During this time I start to relax just a little bit. Even as an ambitious nurse. I can only go hardcore for a specific time. I am very much even keeled. I don't like emotionally swinging hard one way. And then another way. I don't mind relaxing. And I don't mind working. But I can't do both for an extended period of time. And so I enjoy this time of year because my mind starts to say, okay, we're relaxing. We are trending downward. In my 20 years of nursing very early on in my career, it would be. Patient volume swings to where around this time of year, I've always been in surgery in some sort of surgical setting. But this one even happened in the medical areas also. But. The volume of the patients we saw, What's trending downward. Cause not too many people were having surgeries. There were even times when I would be working in the CT ICU. CBR you, what was, what we call it back then? I would come in on a weekend and it would be one patient in the unit. The only reason we had that one patient and didn't close down the unit is because no one else had the skillset to take care of that one patient. That patient would be extremely stable, like very stable. It was that one patient. They weren't intubated. They just needed to be monitored. Um, But again, no one else had the skillset to take care of that particular patient. And a lot, I'm telling all the secrets, but. Um, when that patient fell asleep, we would make sure that we had everything checked off. We would continue to monitor the patient, continue to check in on it. And then we would have like this little TV playing in the background, like playing Christmas music, movies or we would pull out a book. Let's just be real. Like, this is what we were doing. There was only one patient, you had to have two nurses in the area. Those were the good old days. I don't think that those things are happening in this day in time, as far as they're literally being on only one patient in the unit. But there would be times. When we would have no patients and we would get called off, some people would be mad about it. I wouldn't be mad about it. Because I like to, again, go hard, go hard in the paint and then I'm relaxing. There would also be times when our volume was high and we needed people to work overtime. I would work overtime, sparingly. I don't mind working overtime, but I'm not going to change my schedule to work overtime. Let's just say that if I'm free. I'll do it. If I'm free, I have the mental capacity to handle it, to deal with it. But if I'm overly stressed, I'm old do my three days and then I'm gonna go home and catch a nap. I was never seen though as not being flexible as all she wants to do is just go to work and come back home and do our job. Yeah. Like, this is something that I mentioned all the time. Maybe not enough. But I am very adamant about. People seeing and understanding and you showcase thing. That was you, you first understanding what is it? That is important to my leadership to see. So they can see that I am all in, on the work that I need to do because I am. But then what is it that. I just don't need to even worry about because it's not important to them. And it ain't important to me. And how do I protect myself? Set boundaries. It's more so about setting boundaries and understanding what's important to them. Versus what's important to you. Making sure that you're on the same page and sometimes you're not but you do those things that are very important. To make sure that the work gets done, it gets covered. Patients get taken care of. And so I said all of that to say, I am. Not an all work and no play type a girl. That is not me. And so as we go into the end of the year, I want to talk about. Those things I am doing, and hopefully this will give some of you some ideas. If you are one of those people who feels like you have to go hard in the paint all the time, you have to be doing something. Hopefully, this will give you some ideas on some things that you can do. To either reset, get back into what you were doing, that you may have fallen off of. Pick these things back up. I will say many of the things I am mentioning. I have fallen off of, and I felt it. Like I felt my mind always being on or, not really being able to sleep well. I recognized it when I got COVID earlier this year. Mid this year. It's my first time ever having COVID. Literally my mind could only think about one thing. Prior to that week, I was thinking about 10 things at one time. But that week my mind was so cloudy in. It literally, all I could do is just lay in bed and watch movies. Because I could only do one thing at a time. That was the first time I couldn't look at my phone and watch a movie and read something at the same time. That's really not what we're supposed to do. Like our brain is really like when we're. And it at its optimal state, we should only be doing one thing. People call it multitasking. Oh yeah, I can multitask. That's not really. Helpful. It is not helpful. Because as you can't prioritize one thing over the other. And you're going to miss something and I have to remind myself of that. That is really not helpful to multitask. But you go faster. When you focus. On just one thing. You get that thing done and then you move on to the next, I have to constantly remind myself of that. And so I am here to help those who are ambitious, who want to go hard in the paint, who. Might feel like taking a vacation as a joke. Here are some things I am going to focus on a little bit more. As I wind down the year and enjoy this season of giving. The season of being with family and with friends. And this season of S it should be, it could be some celebration for many, for some, you're working, you might be working through some loss. Even in that it's important to figure out what brings you joy. Not necessarily to not reflect on your losses, but what was joyful about. That person or thing. That you can make a good memory out of. Here are some things that I am going to do. Some play, shall we say? That will help me with honestly, some self discovery. Some enjoyment. Many times when I'm relaxed. That is when I'm the most creative. After, about another episode, I'm going to take a break. I will be taking a break from the podcast in December. Have my birthday in January. And I will be back on the pot with podcasts episodes in mid January. So I'll do about one or two more episodes, then we are going to pause. Take a break. And pick back up in January, number one thing that I'm going to do is travel. My travel during the holidays is not extensive. It is going to visit family members. Thankfully. My family members I get along with. I understand that that doesn't happen with everybody. So if you can travel to see some friends, Exercise your boundaries, protect your peace. Go and visit friends who might provide that more family atmosphere say, okay, I do have to go and visit. I'm going to go and visit for this set time and then make sure you buffer in those people that you really want to see. You really want to get love from. So that you're not always feeling like. You're being pulled on one And you're not exhausted. During this time, I'm going to watch sports. That sports is my drama. I don't really watch any other type of TV. Well sports and Christmas movies. Watch some TV we'll watch sports. Football on Thanksgiving. Basketball on Christmas, although football has crypt its way into. Christmas and. Then some college football playoffs, that's my jam during the holidays. Those are the things that I just like to shift my thoughts towards. That's my drama that I get into. Over the holidays and, what brings me joy? Music. I love Christmas music. I'm already starting to listen to it. I usually love to listen to it on the unit. I'm definitely diving into that. Walks, I need to get out and walk more than I do. One of my goals is to focus on my health. And not that things are falling apart. But I've always been of. A mindset that you need to catch it before it gets to falling apart. You don't need to catch it when you get signs and symptoms that has fallen apart. But when you know, you're off track you need to get back on track. And I know I'm off track. I want to get back into a good rhythm of at least going for some walks, making sure I'm getting some strength training in during this time off and establishing some good routines with that. Doing some exploration with my husband and my son. We have some holiday events that we like to do. We are establishing traditions. And so we will do that during this time, of holiday and rest. That's a lot of what I will be focused on. Just establishing those traditions. And then lastly, These are the things that are on the top of my mind. What are the top things that are like immediately, I'm like, oh yeah. I want to do that. Lastly planning and goal setting, somebody might think, oh my gosh, like you do that to relax. I absolutely do. And wish I could do it more than I do and need to spend time on it more than I do. I heard someone say that planning for one hour saves you about 10 hours worth of time. And I would agree with that planning and following through with the plan now. You plan so you can follow through with the plan. Sometimes I don't follow through with the plan, but many times, I have to take a long time because I'm very big picture. I will write out a big picture that I have to come back to and get more detailed. Then I'll get more detailed and it's still high level. I have to come back to it and break it down. So that I have. Solid goals. And plans for the year and for the first quarter. And so I plan on coming up with. And I've done. I've, I've, I've gone overboard with planning in the past. And as I've been winding down the year, I've been trying to think about how I'm going to make my goals simple. These are all. Lifestyle goals. Like it hits every area of my life. Or the areas that really need a goal. This year, I'm going to do three. Personal goals. Three. Professional goals and three financial goals. When I come back in January to the podcast, I will let you know what I've come up with those three goals. I will give you an idea of what my milestones are, what the routines are, what the action plans will be around those goals and the habits and routines that I am using to build out and carry through with those goals. This is a work in progress. I have found because I've been setting goals intentionally the last five to seven years. It is a work in progress. Part of my work in progress is I had to find the gold system that really worked for me. That is a huge part of the process I feel like I found the goal setting process that works for me. And now I need to work the plan. And so that is how I will round out. This all work and no play makes Bonnie a Dole person. And so I am going to take some time to travel, to watch some TV, some sports, some Christmas movies. To listen to music, Christmas music. To make sure I get my workouts in. Walk, explore with my husband and my son. And focus on planning and goal setting as we go into 2025. My call to action to you is what are you going to do? Too. Have what I call recovery time. In my wellbeing practice, I focus on compassion. Presence and recovery. It is time for rest and recovery. For me. I believe for everyone around this time. It's a good time for rest and recovery, even if it's for a short period of time. But what will you do? During this time. To recover. From all of the stimuli, all of the inputs, all of the, gotta do this. Gotta do that. Yes. Even during the holiday time. Even more so during the holiday time, because some of you may be thinking, oh, my family has this plan. We have to do this. We have to do that. Find a way. To get protected time. So you can recover and be the best you can be. 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!