Inside Every Woman

Nurses have the strength of fusion. When a patient arrests, your team comes together and fuses like a single entity to do whatever is needed to code the patient successfully. Why not use this strength of fusion to code yourself? The more audacious your goals, the more you will need other people to help you achieve those goals. This means surrounding yourself with strong, successful people of integrity to keep you, and your dream, alive.

More powerful than networking or brainstorming, fusion is the process of collaborating, mentoring, masterminding ideas together and encouraging individual passions and visions. Even though I have a successful business, I also had a personal goal of writing my book Inside Every Woman: Using the 10 Strengths You Didn’t Know You Had to Get the Career and Life You Want Now – and that wasn’t happening. One business excuse after another. It was after I brought nine women together to discuss my book idea that I started on my book in earnest. Fusing with these women stirred my desire and passion and fueled me to move from the dream of the book to the reality of the book.

Even though I’m normally catatonic after 9:00pm, I found myself using my strength of endurance, writing and rewriting, writing and rewriting again and then rewriting the rewrites until 2:00 in the morning. I was energized and ready to move forward. Sure, I lost sleep but I gained a new fire for my life. Suddenly attaining an impossible goal didn’t seem so impossible at all. The collective force of fusing with those nine women is what made my bold venture possible.

The more successful we are, the less time one has to spend with friends and family. We spend less time doing the things we like and more time doing the things we need to do to make our businesses successful. Running your legal nurse consulting business, managing people or navigating your way through the hospital maze can be very stressful and sometimes lonely. That’s why fusing with other successful people is vital to encouraging and empowering you. Hang with winners if you want to be a winner. Only hang with losers if you want to be a loser.

You can fuse with successful CLNC^® consultants from other cities and states. The deepest, most effective fusion will happen when you connect with CLNC^® consultants from different locations and different specialties. CLNC^® consultants who are not your direct competitors and CLNC^® consultants who will wholeheartedly share the bold bursts of genius that have propelled their businesses to higher levels.

Fusing with CLNC^® consultants at a distance will take some planning, but it’s worth it. Don’t expect to have monthly meetings. Instead, plan for getting together in person quarterly or twice a year or even annually at the NACLNC^® Conference. To keep the fusion going in between, use Skype video-conference calls, telephone conference calls, Facebook, monthly chats and emails.

You can also fuse with entrepreneurs who are not CLNC^® consultants. In any group of entrepreneurs, someone has already solved the very challenge you’re about to face – getting your first client, hiring your first employee, working with a difficult client. The key is to remember that successful people hang with other successful people. There’s nothing wrong with fusing with people who, like you, are on the way up.

In fusion, we all have to pull our own weight, carry our own loads and be responsible for our own actions. Choose ruthlessly and honestly. Remember – it’s your career, your life and your goals. Choose carefully so that your fusion team is one that supports you.

Success Is Inside!

Nurses have the strength of renewal. You’re a healer. You renew and re-energize the patients you care for, physically and emotionally, turning them out healthier than they were before. You give and you give and you give all your energy to renew everyone else. But do you turn that strength around and apply it to you?

Consider this, if you stepped back and looked at your daily routine objectively, as if it were happening to a good friend, what would be your advice? Slow down? Take a few breaths? Spend a few moments mindfully enjoying one day before another day crashes in with new demands?

You can’t keep giving what you don’t have. If you’re feeling like an overworked, underpaid nurse it’s time to reclaim your life energy through frequent renewal. Remember, our thoughts become our reality and renewal helps us change both our thoughts and our reality.

To have a healthy, exciting and fulfilling relationship with others, you must first have a healthy, exciting and fulfilling relationship with yourself. When you’re your own best friend this is easy, but too often our practices sabotage what we need and instead we act as our own worst enemy – repeating behaviors that we know are bad for us and not taking the renewal steps we need to restore ourselves. If we don’t renew on a regular basis, we’ll slip further and further into the state we’re seeking to escape. When you renew, you recharge your batteries to gain the energy for your big goals while still juggling the daily challenges of your career and life.

I recently mentored a CLNC^® student who shared that she had lost the connection to herself, to her vision and to what really mattered in life. After our visit she vowed to go home and get reacquainted with herself.

I’m just as challenged as you are. When I left my hospital job to start my own business, I fantasized about 4-hour work days and lying by the pool sipping margaritas. Boy was that a hallucination!

Knowing all the issues and the 21 employees waiting for me at the office, I wake up 30 minutes earlier than I have to, and well before any sane person, to make time for a cup of quiet renewal in the form of healthy green tea. When I get into the office I’m ready: “Come on, bring on the madness!” Taking time to charge my own batteries prepares me that much more for the challenges and opportunities each day brings.

It’s okay to take care of yourself. If you don’t, the odds are nobody else will. Carve out your own 30-minute renewal break daily, before everyone gets up or after everyone has gone to bed, and you’ll find energy abundantly available when you need it to grow your nursing career, your legal nurse consulting business and your life.

Success Is Inside!

Nurses have the strength of enterprise. Think about all the creative, enterprising ways you’ve worked around administration, the doctors, the insurance companies – all on behalf of your patients. To satisfy everybody you have to be enterprising. But being enterprising isn’t just about satisfying patients, doctors and administration. It’s about being enterprising in the pursuit of your career and professional advancement. You must be as enterprising as the CEO of a successful business.

One way CEOs are more enterprising is they expect a payoff for every venture, large or small. After I got my masters degree, my hospital failed to acknowledge it. I didn’t even get a 25¢/hour pay raise. I thought this venture deserved a payoff, so I gave myself a pay raise by announcing my resignation and getting a job at a hospital that recognized my new level of knowledge.

A few years after I started my legal nurse consulting business I attended law school at night. At the time, I thought I would be interested in practicing law, but later decided I preferred the payoff of the freedom and flexibility that my legal nurse consulting business afforded me.

After I graduated, one of the law firms I consulted with offered me a position as an associate attorney. I didn’t have to think hard about the offer. Not only was I already doing what I loved, I was also earning more money as a legal nurse consultant than any of the associate attorneys just out of law school. Saying no was easy.

Then, a year after I politely turned down the associate position, they upped the ante and offered me a partnership at the law firm. Now, the stakes were much higher. These were some of the best medical-malpractice attorneys in Texas! Between working with these attorneys and thinking about the partner bonuses, that offer was more lucrative than I thought my legal nurse consulting and education businesses could ever be.

But then I remembered that payoff isn’t always about money. Practicing law wouldn’t provide the emotional payoff I was receiving from helping nurses start their own legal nurse consulting businesses. My passion was teaching, not lawyering. My enterprising spirit (and intuitive vision) told me something grander lay ahead. So I stayed with what I loved and passed on what certainly seemed to be a firm financial future. Eventually, as our intuitive decisions often do, my decision paid off, both financially and emotionally.

When you take on a new venture, make a career decision or simply choose how to spend your time, you should ask, what’s the payoff? Is it monetary, is it good for your spirit, is it good for your career, is it good for your life? If you say no to this opportunity, is there a bigger payoff available to you? You may have to look hard and be imaginative. The profit may not always be in cash but there needs to be a payoff. Passion for your life and work is the best profit of all. But you still don’t want to underprice yourself. So reach for the stars – you deserve them, whether it’s in business or simply personal.

Success Is Inside!

Nurses have the strength of endurance. How else would you get through those 12-hour shifts? You work on your feet, you eat on your feet, you think on your feet. Sure – you get to sit down at least once a shift – when you go to the bathroom. Wait a minute – nurses don’t sit, right? We squat – we ain’t touching nothing. But how do you fuel your endurance when the doctor wants it yesterday, your kids want it today and…your spouse wants it tonight?

Endurance is about having the stamina to do what it takes to succeed. When you are launching and growing your business as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, you need endurance. I love working and I don’t mind working long, hard hours full of the challenges inevitable in my legal nurse consulting business. Those hours are easier to endure because I love what I do and also because I reward myself by taking off 12 weeks throughout the year to pursue my passion for hiking and traveling. That’s my payoff and the further I get away from the business to places like Bhutan, the Galapagos, Patagonia and the Arctic Circle, the bigger the payoff.

When I’m off, I’m off. I stay disconnected. My office knows they can reach me if the office is on fire, but they also know I’m not calling in unless I need a ride from the airport. When I return home, the fire for my CLNC^® business blazes just like it did 28 years ago. Fuel your endurance with incremental payoffs as you focus on your big dreams for your legal nurse consulting business. Don’t wait for the big win. Celebrate the small steps and reward yourself all along the way.

It’s not just the final payoff but also the amazing small payoffs you receive along the way that will help you endure the journey to success. Reward yourself, and your family, for the small accomplishments; don’t wait for the big win.

At my company we celebrate more than birthdays and work anniversaries. We’ll stop and celebrate a milestone on a project – such as the completion of a website design or the promotional materials for a new product. We don’t wait until the product hits the market or until we see whether it’s successful. We celebrated the proposal for my book, Inside Every Woman: Using the 10 Strengths You Didn’t Know You Had to Get the Career and Life You Want Now when we submitted it to the publisher. We didn’t know if it would be accepted, but we knew we had put a lot of hard work into that proposal and we were proud of our final work product and a job well done. Sometimes the success is in the middle. I like to celebrate stepping out and going for it. When we define success as going for what we want (regardless of the outcome), we can succeed and celebrate every day. Celebrate the hard work that you’ve done and then celebrate again whether or not things work out the way you wanted.

If your endurance is tested and you’re tempted to give up, remember this: whether you’re building a legal nurse consulting business or working toward a promotion, the ultimate reward goes to those who endure even when the big reward is far in the distance.

Success Is Inside!

Did you know that the most trusted profession is nursing? No surprises there. Nurses are the patients’ advocates. Patients know who’s watching their backs. Watching out for the patient, standing up for the patient, protecting the patient – this is our primary role. And that requires integrity above all else. You have the strength of integrity.

The whole world trusts nurses. But the question is, “Do you trust yourself to succeed beyond where you are today?” Do you have the integrity to act on what you really want to do with your nursing career? When I decided to start my legal nurse consulting business in 1982, nurses did not own businesses. I had to have the integrity to trust myself and that yes, I could succeed as a legal nurse consultant.

And, do you trust the people who you spend your life and time with? If you want to become a legal nurse consultant or grow your CLNC^® business, surround yourself with family, friends and attorney-clients whom you trust and who treat you with integrity. When you do, you will easily achieve your CLNC^® dreams and desires. I had to ignore the naysayers. Their fears did not have to become my fears.

Nurses at our CLNC^® Certification Seminars always comment on what a great staff I have at Vickie Milazzo Institute. They say, “I’ve never seen a company that has so many positive people.” When I left hospital nursing, I intentionally set out to create a culture that did not include gossiping, whining and complaining. I created our mission to be about the customer. That’s the culture of integrity here at the Institute.

As you build your CLNC^® business, do so with intention and create a culture that supports your highest integrity by choosing to surround yourself with people who share and support your vision.

Never tolerate people or groups who are intentionally gossipy, mean or hurtful to you or anyone else. If you find yourself in an environment that’s putting you down, don’t put up with it. Don’t let rotten apples sour your fire and vision.

Likewise, it’s important to know that if you participate in gossiping, whining or complaining, it kills not only your fire, but also your opportunities for career advancement and growing your legal nurse consulting business. I promise you, the people who matter do notice unprofessional behavior.

The more successful we are in our careers, the more we participate in life, the more we face decisions that challenge our integrity. That’s why I love the Buddhist proverb that says, “Even the smallest act should not be underestimated, for even tiny flakes of snow falling one atop another can blanket the tallest mountain in pure whiteness.”

Success Is Inside!

Last week I was mentoring an RN who had just over twenty years of nursing experience. She had one of those backgrounds and skill sets that should have been the envy of the staff around her. She was considering a nursing career change and wanted to talk to me about legal nurse consulting. I asked what was holding her back from making a change and she told me flat out that it was fear. She was afraid to make a move that would affect her life, either for the positive or for the negative. I asked her how long she’d been considering a change and she told me three years – after a friend of hers had become a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

Her situation reminded me of a skydiving experience I had several years ago. In skydiving, you’re either out of the plane doing it or on the ground watching others free-fall. You’ll never experience the thrill unless you step out yourself.

For years I said I would never step out of an airplane unless it was with my two feet firmly planted on an air-conditioned jetway. I don’t care for cliff-hanging heights and I never really saw the point in skydiving.

Then one Saturday, I found myself stepping out of an open airplane door at 14,000 feet. The only other time I’d tasted air at that altitude was with my feet on the ground in the shadow of Mount Everest. Jumping out of an airplane was a much bigger step for me than hiking in the Himalayas. The experience brought back potent memories of my early fears in starting my legal nurse consulting business and reminded me of the success lessons I’d learned from facing those fears.

Success Lesson #1 – Face Your Fears and Commit to Step Out in Your CLNC^® Business.

Why did I choose to step out? When three fearless, thrill-seeking staffers from Vickie Milazzo Institute decided to try skydiving, I felt I had no choice but to confront my fear of heights head on. After all, wasn’t I always the one advocating the virtues of risk taking? The timing of this adventure seemed poor since someone on my staff had recently talked to a nurse whose skydiving accident left her a paraplegic. Nevertheless, I committed to this adventure; and most important, to step out.

Success Lesson #2 – Set Challenging Yet Achievable Goals as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

I had one goal and one goal only, and that was to step out. No fancy aerobatics – I wasn’t even prepared to jump solo like the paralyzed nurse had. Yet to meet my goal of jumping tandem, I had to step out voluntarily. Being pushed out did not qualify.

Success Lesson #3 – Take Formal Classes to Prepare for Stepping Out.

Even to jump tandem I needed instruction. One of the prerequisites for stepping out was to watch a video and take part in a one-hour class. The video was guaranteed to scare off anyone who was easily intimidated. It contained no less than five warnings about serious injury or death. I also had to sign a 10-page waiver that mentioned serious injury or death at least 10 times.

The instructor wisely balanced the seriousness of what we were doing by discussing the fun we would have and joking throughout the class. As the stress and anxiety among us mounted, giggles escalated into loud laughter. It made no sense, but I was strangely comforted by the fact that I was not the only person who was nervous.

Success Lesson #4 – Give Yourself Permission to Be Less Than Perfect Whether You Are Launching or Growing Your Legal Nurse Consulting Business.

Beyond my one goal of stepping out, I wasn’t concerned about anything else. I gave myself permission to forget everything I learned in class, do everything wrong and scream all the way down if that brought me comfort. If necessary, I could rely on my tandem master for everything and still have a safe trip down.

Success Lesson #5 – Check the Credentials and Success Status of Anyone Who Advises You. To Feel Safe and Accelerate Your Learning Process, Learn from a Master.

Before stepping out, I interviewed my tandem master, Scott, to assess his skydiving credentials. My spirits lightened dramatically when I learned he had made 4,500 jumps and competed internationally. It felt especially auspicious when he added that his first skydiving experience was in the womb at 6 months gestation. He was clearly passionate about skydiving, and I instantly felt safe with him. If I was going to entrust my life to someone, surely Scott was a good choice.

Success Lesson #6 – Own Your Fears and Share Them with Mentors You Trust.

I owned up to my fear and was heartened further by my tandem master’s encouragement and lack of judgment about my fear.

Success Lesson #7 – Know That It’s Never Too Late to Live Your Dream.

Scott boosted my courage even more by sharing that one of his clients skydived for the first time on her 85th birthday, again on her 86th birthday and again on her 87th, at which time she declared she wasn’t sure she could wait another year to do it again.

Success Lesson #8 – Choose for Yourself. Don’t Let Anyone Else Talk You Out of Your Dreams. Discard All Discouraging Messages.

That encouraging message triumphed over an earlier discouraging message by one of my staffers who was not skydiving that day. She and several others had joined us in our adventure as spectators.

She voiced her own fear with, “I can’t believe you’re really going to do this.” When I playfully reminded her that I thought she was there to encourage me, not discourage me, she said, “I’m here to talk you out of it.” Knowing she was expressing her fear from a place of love and concern, I chose to discard her message, still appreciating that she cared.

Success Lesson #9 – Surround Yourself with Friends, Family and Peers Who Encourage You to Live Your Dream.

After class, we had to wait 4½ hours to step out. Soon, she too, along with the Vickie Milazzo Institute team who came to watch, cheer and offer support from the ground, joined in celebrating. We had fun together as we waited and I trusted sharing this ride with my Vickie Milazzo Institute team on the ground and in the air.

Success Lesson #10 – Enjoy the Ride Along the Way. It Will Last Longer Than the Event Itself.

The truth is, we spent a lot more time on the ground than we did in the air (less than 5 minutes). The 4½-hour wait seemed eerily both like an eternity and like a brief moment. I was glad we had our Vickie Milazzo Institute team to party with while waiting. It definitely took my mind off my fear of stepping out.

Success Lesson #11 – HAVE FUN!

Scott wanted only one thing from me. Right before I stepped out, he said, “If you forget everything, it’s okay. You don’t have to be perfect. I’ll be with you all the way. Your only goal today is to have fun.” I thought it was a good idea to add FUN to my simple goal of stepping out. So, now I was going to have fun stepping out.

Success Lesson #12 – Take All the Steps Necessary to Achieve Your Legal Nurse Consulting Goal.

Once they called our jump-load, everything happened quickly. I put on my jumpsuit, and Scott helped me get into the harness. This simple act confirmed that I was in the hands of a calm, confident expert (or at least I felt that way).

I stepped onto the plane, putting on my best fake-calm face at the sight of the door that was to remain open for most of the flight. Scott talked to me the whole time to help me relax. When it was almost time to step out, everything shifted into high gear. I put on my helmet and goggles. Scott hooked my harness to his, assuring me that with each of the four connections, we were securely attached.

Suddenly, the two jumpers before me were gone, and it was my turn to step out. Moving toward the open door, I remembered the instructor’s motto, “Once you get in the plane, ‘No, No, No’ means ‘Go, Go, Go.’” Knowing I was about to leave the safety of this crude plane seemed almost surreal. Now it was time to apply what I had learned.

Success Lesson #13 – Step Out! It’s Scary but Worth Every Second.

I couldn’t learn to fly merely by hanging out at the flight center, watching a video, taking a class, watching someone else do it or by reading a book. I had to JUST DO IT! And I did. I stepped out. I accomplished my simple, but extremely difficult goal. The 60-second free fall at 120 miles per hour was both scary and exhilarating – and probably the longest 60 seconds of my life.

Success Lesson #14 – Embrace the Challenges You’re Capable of Handling in Your CLNC^® Business Today and Expand Your Knowledge and Experience so You Can Tackle More Complex Challenges for Your CLNC^® Future.

My body position was less than perfect. At this fast and furious speed Scott helped me arch into a better, yet still less-than-perfect position.

Meanwhile, the videographer jumping with us had to cut away from his malfunctioning main parachute, which had put him into a life-threatening spin. He relied on his extensive experience and training to calmly cut the cord and release his reserve chute. He continued to the ground where he completed filming my jump – all without blinking an eye. From a safe distance I was able to appreciate the complexities of this sport, and I was glad I wasn’t yet called upon to confront such a challenge.

Success Lesson #15 – Experience Every Aspect of Your CLNC^® Goals Fully and Celebrate Each Stepping Out Along the Way.

When my 60-second free fall was over and my parachute opened, the pace of the experience quickly changed from a gallop to stillness and quiet. Houston is not known for its natural beauty, but the sinking sun never seemed more beautiful (even more beautiful than sipping sundowners on the Serengeti) than from my sky-high vantage point. The most exhilarating feeling of all was my feet hitting the familiar ground I had left only minutes before. I landed smoothly and easily, knowing I had done it. The champagne we all shared afterwards was the sweetest I’ve ever tasted.

To the RN who I mentored and all nurses and Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, I ask, “Do you have fears keeping you from stepping out to live your big dreams?” Launching and growing a legal nurse consulting business is a lot like skydiving, and the same success lessons apply. You have to step out if you want to fly high.

Step out to fly high today.

Success Is Inside!

You have the strength of genius. You save lives every day. Is there anything more intelligent than that? Saving lives requires a special kind of genius. Move over, Einstein. Let a nurse handle it.

So, what’s the most ingenious thing you’ve done for your CLNC^® business? Here’s how to get to your next ingenious idea. Change one small action or behavior. Instead of watching TV after dinner, spend that time contemplating and visualizing how you will grow your legal nurse consulting business. I turned the TV off in college and never turned it back on. Turning off the TV cleared out the noise and clutter and freed me to think big about my future as an RN. Already in nursing school, I knew I wanted to one day own my own business at a time when nurses didn’t own businesses. Such a huge goal – owning my own legal nurse consulting business – could not have happened without that small change of turning off the TV.

Change one small thing and you change your entire future. That’s the essence of genius. Respect your genius – you’re an Einstein in your own world and you can be an Einstein in any world you choose.

Success Is Inside!

Nurses naturally have the strength of agility. After all, you can’t be a nurse and not be agile. When you have five people talking to you at once, and you’re handling five different emergencies at once, that takes agility. When you go from this to that, without time to think and seconds are making a difference – that’s agility. When you’re floated to a unit you know nothing about – and you don’t kill anyone – that’s agility. As nurses, we’re all over that strength, aren’t we?

But agility is more than bending over backwards to satisfy a patient or even a unit of patients. Instead of simply using your agility to cope with your nursing practice or your day-to-day life, do you use your agility to stretch and grow to new levels professionally and personally? Agility is also flexing a curiosity about what else is out there for you professionally.

Agility is also about challenging fixed viewpoints that people (like the doctors, your supervisor, your spouse) have about you and fixed viewpoints you have about yourself. When I started my legal nurse consulting business, I had to challenge the fixed viewpoint that nurses don’t go into business. I also had to challenge the fixed viewpoint that if the business idea hasn’t already been invented, there’s probably no market for it. But more importantly, I had to challenge my own fixed viewpoints.

These include the belief that nursing didn’t prepare me for owning a legal nurse consulting business and the belief that I didn’t have time to start a business as a legal nurse consultant with my full-time nursing job at the hospital.

Open your mind and energy to people who can introduce you to new ways of thinking about nursing or your CLNC^® business and the unlimited possibilities that are available when you stretch your agility. You’ll need to be willing to change directions, just like you do in your hospital job. And be ready to shake things up.

Risking even minor change strengthens your agility to go where you need to go next and prepares you for future challenges that will undoubtedly require even more change. When you stretch yourself to a new level, the next challenge isn’t nearly as scary; the ground is more familiar. Agility is your path to a deeper, richer experience in nursing and in your CLNC^® business, as well as the strength you’ll need to side-step any challenges you’ll meet along the way.

Success Is Inside!

Engagement is about committing to achieve big. Talk about a group who is willing to engage or commit. Nurses are tycoons of engagement. Nurses commit themselves to situations that make normal people faint. Every nurse I know is fully committed – or maybe ready to be committed. We’ve all worked that shift. Nurses know how to engage and get things done. In the middle of horrendous situations, you instinctively triage on the fly – you resuscitate, defibrillate and medicate and then you go to work. Total engagement.

You have the strength of engagement. But are you willing to engage all the way in resuscitating yourself and your nursing career? There won’t be a code team coming to rescue you or your career. It’s entirely up to you. Resuscitating your career requires the same level of commitment you would give to a patient who just arrested, but is even more long term.

When I decided to start my legal nurse consulting business in 1982, I knew a lot of smart nurses who had dreams and ideas, but they didn’t do anything with them. They didn’t engage, they didn’t take action. They had their dreams, but they were disappointed. Some were bitter and angry. I’ve always said that dreams can make a person miserable, if you don’t ever act on them. It’s the action behind your dream that makes you happy.

When I launched my legal nurse consulting business, I had a full-time nursing job; so to succeed in my new business, I committed to take action every day. I learned that in the beginning it didn’t matter so much what I did, but that I did something. I was developing the habits and the discipline to make my legal nurse consulting business dream a reality. Whatever your dream is, you need to engage big. Start with the first 30 days. Turn that into 60 then 90. Success is in the motion and in getting the motion moving. You can’t start a business without starting something.

The more action you take, the easier it is to step out the next time. Anything you’re going for: career advancement, starting a CLNC^® business, improving a professional relationship – do something. Once you’ve committed to take action every day, then it’s time to focus on and engage in the impactful actions that give you the result you want.

What you engage and focus on is where you will yield results. You’ll need to break the feel-good addictions, and there are so many of them – checking email, surfing the Internet, watching TV and keeping up with your friends on Facebook – all of which take us away from big and important things. If you’re spending more than eight hours a day at work, you need to be extra vigilant about cutting out any feel-good addictions in order to have the maximum energy and focus for your CLNC^® business. The wrong focus might make you feel good about how many points you’ve scored in Mobster Wars or Farm-gate but, at the end of the day if all you’ve done is clicked your mouse, how’s that working for you and your dreams?

Where and how we focus also includes our families and friends. Society is complex, with family, friends, career, spiritual and social obligations. Nurses can handle a lot, and if we’re not careful, we find ourselves doggedly committing our energy to every person or situation that demands our time. My motto is nurses CAN do anything – not nurses SHOULD do everything. Set your own expectations for what you want to accomplish, stop being a commitment queen (for male nurses that’s commitment king) and shed the guilt for not doing everything for everybody.

It’s okay to say no. Say no to all the laundry, all the housework and all the carpools and preserve some time for your own dreams. Delegate. Your spouse and kids will benefit from participating in family life and learning new skills like washing dishes or sorting socks.

Engagement starts with choice. Choose the goal for your engagement with your passions and vision in mind. Resolve to engage in something big today.

Success Is Inside!

Intuitive vision is about connecting with your imagination, paying attention, trusting, perhaps experimenting a little, and seeing where that takes you. You have the strength of intuitive vision. How often do you make a diagnosis even before the doctor does? You don’t need lab reports or X rays. How often have you not followed your “gut” and regretted it? You intuitively know what needs to be done. And you do it every day, day after day.

You have intuitive vision. But are you using that strength for yourself as well as for your patients? Are you using it to move your nursing career to where you want to be? Are you making the diagnosis and doing what needs to be done to create the future you desire? As nurses, we’re our own worst patients. Go ahead and laugh, but you know it. We always know what everybody else needs but are often in denial about what we need. It’s time to trust what our intuition tells us we need for ourselves.

In 1982, I created the nursing specialty of legal nurse consulting by trusting my intuition. My intuition told me attorneys needed nurses, even if those same attorneys didn’t know it yet themselves. When one of the first attorneys said “no,” that could have discouraged me if I let it. Then where would I be now? My intuitive vision told me not to stop and has led me to where I am today.

Don’t squelch your passion. For intuitive vision to work, you must not only trust it, but you must be tuned into it. How do you get in touch with your own intuitive vision? First, silence will arouse your vision. Clear some space, unclutter your mind. Purposefully eliminate one outside stimulus or one TV show. Then eliminate another and another until you can make time for silence. Silence is the only way you can connect with your intuitive vision to advance your nursing career.

You must also avoid negative naysayers. You might not think of a relationship as clutter, but it can be if it’s blocking your intuitive vision. Negative people, negative relationships and other energy vampires will stand between you and your vision. Cut them loose. This act is one of the most freeing acts you will experience.

Finally, to become more successful, begin to see yourself as more successful. Envision your new success over and over – planning, taking action, succeeding. If your goal is to put together a legal nurse consulting marketing proposal that wins a new attorney-client or to earn a promotion at your hospital job, vividly see the benefits you’ll receive and the people (you, your husband, your kids) who will enjoy the fruits of your efforts. You must see the change you wish to be – start creating it today.

Success Is Inside!