Year of the Nurse - What is Your Nursolution?

With 2020 being the Year of the Nurse, it is a time for career reflection and new career goals. This article gives some example of new year resolutions to help nurses take advantage of this new year and the opportunities it brings.

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Specializes in emergency nursing.

The year of the nurse is upon us folks, 2020 is here and nurses are getting ready to take on the world in the innovation space, the tech space, and more! Nurses owe it to themselves to create their own New Years' resolutions, or nursolutions, and make this their best year yet. That being said, here are some ideas to help the nurses out there that want to kickstart their year and advance their careers!

1) Advance your degree

These days nurses are constantly acquiring new opportunities and new positions and advanced degrees are contributing to this. Take this year to decide if you want to go on based on your dream job and then research the programs you want. Maybe you don’t know what you want to get for a degree so start talking to people. Ask anyone you know that is or has gone back to school and get their advice and feedback. You can go online and easily request information from various schools and programs to educate yourself on which way to go. Knowing what you want to do before you start a program will make this easier and less expensive though so do your research before you jump into anything!

2) Go for a Promotion…or better yet create your own!

The squeaky wheel gets the oil, right? If you are ready to take that next step towards a promotion, put aside the hesitation and just do it! You are not getting younger so why not advance your career starting now. And if there isn’t room in your workplace to grow then look elsewhere for the position you want or create your own. Research the position you want and create a proposal to present to your leadership highlighting what this position would consist of, the need for it, why you would excel in this position, your past achievements, and how this would impact your institution. Talk to others who hold this position in different institutions and be ready to explain why yours needs this person. What’s the worst that could happen? They would say no but now you are on their radar and have given them something to think about.

3) Explore your interests

When you first went into nursing, everyone said how great a career it is because of all of the different areas you can work in. If you were the person who stuck with their first job because you love it, that’s great! But if you have other areas of interest, you owe it to yourself to explore them too. If change is daunting to you, as it can be to me, then baby step this part. Start by narrowing down what you are interested in and see if you can talk to people working in that specialty. Then, maybe you can shadow that person. If it’s looking like this is what you might like then look for a per diem position so you aren’t putting your eggs all in one basket. Moral of the story, if you don’t try, then you will never know what could have been!

4) Find a side hustle

Burnout is a huge problem in nursing. Burnout is driving nurses away from the bedside at alarming rates. In order to avoid hitting that wall, consider doing something on the side. There are scores of nurses out there that have health-related side hustles giving them a break from the long hours and allowing them the freedom to work when it is convenient for them and from home if they desire. Some of those side hustles include health and wellness coaching, essential oil sales, teaching classes like BLS, ACLS, and PALS, just to name a few. You can even work for companies that will get clients for you which takes some of the leg work out of it. Maybe it’s time to drop some hours and try something else you can do from the comfort of your own home while making some extra cash.

5) Join a committee or organization

Sometimes it is difficult to stay engaged in your career or get re-engaged. Joining a committee in your institution or a professional organization is an outlet allowing you to have a voice again. Choose a committee that interests you that may be a little different than your day to day if you need it. Or do you seek change and want to be an agent of change because, why not, you work 40 hours a week and you deserve to have a say! Nurses are strong-willed and many like to be heard as we are natural patient advocates, so filter that into another form of advocacy and join a group. Hospital committees can be a great way to network and professional organizations have plenty of member benefits to take advantage of.

So, no time like the present to get started on your nursolution, whatever it may be. This is your year so make it the best one yet!

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My resolution isn't as lofty as any of these goals, but I'm very excited about it.

My first day of nursing school (many years ago), I started filling out one of those 'Line a Day: 5 Year Memory Journals' that have been trending online recently. Every page represents a day of the year (i.e. page 1 is Jan 1) and the page is split up into 5 sections for the five years. You write 2-3 sentences each day; that way, after you've been doing it for a while, you can look back and see what you were writing about on that same date over the last several years.

https://www.amazon.com/One-Line-Day-Five-Year-Memory/dp/0811870197/

I actually kept up with my first journal for the full five years. It was amazing to chart my progress as a nurse, and to reflect on all of my firsts: my first ever assessment as a nursing student, my first day off orientation, my first IV start, my first code, my first time precepting. It was really rewarding to see concrete evidence of how much I had grown.

Unfortunately, around the time I would have started a new journal I was feeling terribly burned out at work. Writing every day about how miserable I was made me feel worse instead of better, so I let it lapse for a couple of years. Now I'm in a much better place in a job that I enjoy, and I'm starting the practice up again. It's been fun reflecting on what thing I'm going to write about each day, and I'm happy to be back in the habit.

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Specializes in emergency nursing.

What a great idea to have a journal for reflection and to watch yourself grow over the years! Glad you are in a happier place to start it up again! Happy 2020!!

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Specializes in Tele, Interventional Pain Management, OR.

Sale of essential oils as a "side hustle"...are you promoting MLMs?

Not a good look for nurses.

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Specializes in emergency nursing.

I am not “promoting” anything. I am simply stating that side businesses, whatever they may be, are ways for nurses to do something outside of their regular job, should they feel the need to drop hours or create a more flexible schedule!

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