Sometimes in life, taking a step back provides breathing room, which breeds clarity. This clarity can illuminate the path to achieving dreams. Stepping back can be a great tactic to find clarity in both our personal and professionals lives. Several times in my nursing career, I have found myself in this odd, confusing crossroads that forced me to step back in an effort to take giant strides forward.
As a child, rarely was I found without a book in one hand and a journal in the other. I wanted to be a journalist. For those teens of the 90's, I wanted to be the next Lisa Ling! However, I was raised by parents who fully believed that college was a means to obtain a set of skills, license or title. Having a degree in journalism did not secure a job, however, a degree in Nursing did. Now, please don't think that I was forced into a career I did not like. Nursing was always a dream as well. I grew up with chronically ill grandparents, so my exposure to nurses in hospitals, clinics, and hospice had a huge impact on my life. And, since mom and dad offered to flip the bill for college, nursing beat journalism as the career of choice.
June 1998 found me walking across a stage in all white, complete with a crazy nursing cap, accepting my ADN. The day I received my letter stating I passed the boards, I walked onto the unit where I had recently completed my preceptorship and walked off with an hourly wage and start date. I would spend the next year on this Medical-Oncology unit learning the basics of nursing and launching my professional life. I left after one year because life moved me to a new city and new specialty.
My next job was a huge step forward, bundled up in a tiny package. I traded my adult-sized work for a full-time plus (extreme number of overtime) position in a busy Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This is where I truly became a competent, skilled nurse. But, I quickly found myself burned out and physically ill from the long hours, overtime and swing-shift requirement. I stayed at the same hospital but traded my bedside nursing in for a job as a research nurse floating all over the hospital to assist some world-renowned physicians with their studies. This is where I fell in love with processes, policy and medical writing.
I worked in research for 5 years, working primarily with male doctors who simply wanted the work completed timely and well. I was afforded an extreme amount of autonomy, which I loved. If you know anything about research, it is all about having a protocol and sticking to it. For a goal driven nurse, like me, this was a match made in heaven. However, life had a different plan, which led to yet another move for me and my family and a new adventure. Little did I know, my research experience would catapult me forward into the life of case management and leadership.
The next ten years were spent in a myriad of positions in home care, hospice and worker's compensation. I progressed from bedside case manager to Coordinator, Manager, Assistant Director, and Director roles. All the while, struggling with this feeling that there had to be more for me as a nurse and professional. Even though I loved the ability to lead others and impact the provision of care, something was still missing.
As a means to find the missing piece, I went back to school twice. Once to obtain my Bachelors of Nursing and again to obtain a Master's Degree in Healthcare Administration. I was still quite convinced leadership in a traditional setting was going to be my lifelong path. However, turning 40 set a fire in my gut that just would not go away. That desire to create and blaze my own trail was so strong that it spurred many talks at home with my husband about the future and finances, which are not my favorite talks, but they were worth it. After several months of fighting the feeling that I needed to step down from a management position that simply brought me no joy, I did it. I stepped backwards in the conventional sense as means to spring forward fully-committed to my passion.
I requested to step down from the manager position and take a work-at-home position as a case manager. This is the part of the story that many people turn their heads to the side in disbelief. Leaving management when my kids had finally reached the teens years and a level of independence seemed to be counter-intuitive to some bystanders. Contrary to their thoughts, I knew it was right for me. Case Management is what I know and I love. Being back in an environment where I was working with the consumer started to spur ideas of blogs, talks, articles and more. I started searching out writing jobs. One or two here and there started to become a bit more consistent. But, I was doing it solely for extra income, not as a dream or a plan. After making some money and realizing that I was good at this, I started to create some concrete goals. My clinical, case management and leadership knowledge set me apart from others. Being a nurse gave me an advantage I did not know existed.
Better yet, having passion sets me apart in big ways. I am not only able to throw some words together, but I have passion when I create. This passion is communicated in every constructed sentence. The more I write, the stronger the passion becomes. With each article that solidified my potential to be successful at this, the burnout faded and dreams grew. I am very early on in this journey, but I am here ready to write, innovate and give nurses a voice while sharing my passion with others.
I am a firm believer that we all have been given gifts or passions that set the world ablaze. One of the greatest things about nursing is that you can be a nurse in so many different areas or specialties. What is your passion? How can you incorporate your nursing knowledge with your passion to move forward in new directions? Your passion may seem an unlikely fit with nursing, but I once thought writing and nursing did not go together too. Have you been at a crossroads in your career that required you to step back in order to move forward? I would love to hear your story.
