51// Don't Overthink It: The Power of Action in Your Nursing Career (Replay)

This podcast was one of the top 10 podcast episodes of 2024. I am bringing it back as a replay for your enjoyment as I work on new episodes for 2025. 

Are you stuck in analysis paralysis, endlessly weighing the "what ifs" of your nursing career? In this episode, Bonnie Meadows, MSN, APRN, ACCNS-AG, shares her own experiences with overcoming perfectionism and fear to take decisive action.

Bonnie challenges the "checklist mentality" many nurses adopt, urging you to shift from procedure to strategy. She emphasizes the importance of embracing imperfection, asking the right questions, and gathering data to inform your decisions. It's time to stop overthinking and start taking strategic steps toward the career you deserve.

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Transcript

2:10

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. So this week is a little bit more conversational. This is something that I had actually written down a while ago. A lot of times when I, and maybe with our driving or in the shower, There are subjects that come to me or either I have coached someone I've had a conversation with someone. And there are things that, um, and subjects that come up. That I believe more people need to hear. Um, outside of just that one person. That is one of the main reasons why I created this podcast is because I realized that there. Where, some things that I talked about that no one else really talked about. But when I brought it up in conversation with other people, they're like, oh yeah. That's oh yeah, you're right. Um, not that I'm right about everything, but I just realized that I have a unique perspective on. The nursing workforce and how to grow. But also. What you deal with on that path to advancement and growth. I'm just had a lot of time to think and reflect on that. As would most introverts. Do cause we just do a lot of thinking. Um, in our time. However. That's what this podcast episode this week is really about. How do we not? overthink it. This past week. At the end of last week, going into this week. I decided to, do more of an official launch of. My one-on-one nurse career clarity coaching. And many of you probably heard the announcement not that the coaching is going away. You can sign up today if you would like just the incentives or the bonuses doing that. Provides an opportunity for me to highlight those services to, help you to. I understand what comes with it, how it benefits you. Really and more so. What is the transformation or what is, What is the benefit of you signing up for their services? It's a good time to say, Hey, this service is here. And I've got some things to go with it. If you'd like to sign up I decided to do what we would call a launch. I started thinking about it back in, may and I was originally going to do it in August. But then I started looking at my calendar. And I was like, oh, this is not going to work. Until I do it in October. Which is an important point because as I'm going through this entrepreneurial journey, I also have to realize that I'm balancing it with I work full time, I still need to pay my bills. But, I balance it with, other things that I am doing. In my growth in my career, outside of my full-time work like I do within my full-time work. I'm still giving a full press Corps effort. I don't have a desire to quit anytime soon. I love the work that I do. And I want to grow in that. My growth though, in that work probably looks totally different than anyone else's. Because my advancement. I am looking to do outside of work. My advancement I look to do in this, entrepreneurial journey. I look to advance in professional organizations. And grow. In my full-time work, I'm looking to grow. And expand my skillset in that work. Back to the subject at hand. I decided to launch the product, or the coaching, to do a special highlight of it. And within that. Had to make sure that I chose the right time, where I wouldn't be stressed out and wouldn't have other strong priorities between full-time work and my work within professional organizations. Plus, I liked the opportunity to make more nurses aware of these services. To help you grow in your career faster. And with less time, I waited to the last minute to get a lot of it done because I knew generally all the steps that I needed to do in order to do this project. But time-wise I just didn't know. When you are getting coaching from entrepreneurs who don't necessarily work in another job full time, their timeline looks different than someone who works full time and they're building a business on the side. And so I had to decide that it just wasn't going to get done perfectly. Because honestly, my goal was. I would like to form or more nurses to be aware of this opportunity. And to go through the process myself. See how much time this. Is going to take me so that as I plan for 2025, What does that process look like? And how can I improve on it? But I can't improve on the process until I just do it. I had to do it and I had to do it messy. One of the things that we have to remember. Is that even as nurses. We come in with this one, we're starting to do something different when we're starting to grow our careers. We have to shift out of that mindset of it's. Boom. I need to check this off. Boom. I need you to like, it's a procedure. Growing your career is not a procedure. It's a strategy. And because we are trained in the way of. I need to do things this way, this way, this way and this way. There's not much gray in our work. Unless we're thinking about interventions and even within the interventions, they still need to be. Within the realm of making sure that procedure is done correctly. And safely so that you don't do more harm to your patient than good. We tend to think about our careers like that, which is why. We feel like we need to have it all together and have all of our boxes checked we have to move. Carefully. Before we move. And don't take as much risk. And so just keep that in mind, because as I went through this project, I decided to go for it. I knew it was going to be messy but I wasn't going to do it perfectly. Apple's going to have a glitch here. I was going to have a technical glitch there. I didn't get up life happened and I didn't. I had to skip a day of sending out an email I realized that one of my links, it expired, And I couldn't get to it to be able to update the link. Like it's just little things like that. But I was okay because it was about the process. It was about the learning. It was about the growth. And we think we have to come to it already perfected. And so in relation to your career, you feel like you have to make the next move already perfected like it has to be already perfected. I have to have all of the skill set. And it's like, well, yes, you do. You have the skills to translate to that? But how do we get you to a point where you are confident? To translate those skills. Into a different segment of work. And so sometimes we just have to use. What we have. And then ask questions as we go along. So as I was working through this project, I had to use many of the resources that I already had paid for. These are all coaches who have given me resources to implement. This project. So I took that information that I've gotten from coaches. And implement it. My project. And so now I have something to work with to say, okay, here's what I did. Let's debrief and figure out how we can do it just a little bit differently. Next time. And so when it comes to your careers, I'm just here to tell you. Don't overthink it. Yes. You need to have a strategy. Yes. You need to think through the process. I had to think through, well, how does this coaching, how do I help them? How do I help nurses to understand how this coaching experience will help them? How do I help them to get as excited about. Talking about it and developing a plan and being more strategic. About growing your career. I had to think through all of that. So even though the work was messy, there was a lot going on in my head of preparation. I was cultivating. What does that look like? What does it sound like? And even in your growth in your career, it's really laying the foundation of. What do I want this to look like? I had to think about that even in my own project, like what do I want this to look like? What is the end result? And how do I get there? Faster. How do I, take the right next step? And so I encourage you. Yes. Think about it. Come up with a plan. To be strategic. But don't overthink it to the fact that you talk yourself out of it. And you decide not to do anything. Because then when you don't decide to do anything, when you don't decide to make a move into a role that fits. The direction you want to go, but it just might not be quite what you want to do next. But it's available at this point in time, you know, you can grow in your skills at that point. And within that job. When you stay stuck, you're just going off of fear. You're just going off of the, what ifs. But if you don't move. You don't have any data to go off of when you stay stuck and not apply for the graduate school program. Then you don't know. To say, ah, I don't think this program is going to work for me. My gosh, if you just. Applied now, again, I'm saying strategic, don't just randomly apply to some program, go in the right direction. I am reading a book right now. That's called the next right thing. It's by Emily P. Freeman and it's like a New York times. Best seller book. And the one thing she talks about is arrows follow the arrows of what is that direction? Follow those arrows. And just remember don't overthink it. A few questions. I want you to think about. Because many times when we're exploring our options in our careers, we overthink how we should approach the next step. That could be out of fear of rejection or because of perfectionism. And so either way we really need to move forward. With just a few simple questions. Um, do I want to move forward? And my specialty. Or what I like to learn a new specialty. These are just baseline questions. Evaluate that. And then. Who do I know in this area that could possibly ask some questions? Is there a shadowing opportunity that might be available? You're just collecting data. As you're growing your career and you can't do that. Unless you move forward in the project. And collecting the information. And using. What you have available to you? To help you to make a decision on the next right step. I would encourage you to think about, am I overthinking it? Is the answer right there in front of me. And if you need some help with that, you know, I'm always available. For a coaching call. Thank you for your time today. I want to leave you with those thoughts. And I hope to see you next week. 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!