goals

I choose not to engage in stinking thinking. Thoughts like “I can’t do this…I can’t do that…I wish I could but I can’t” never enter my mind nor do I say them. Positive thoughts and spoken words attract positive happenings in my life and in my CLNC^® business, while negative thoughts and spoken words attract negative happenings in your life. I also choose not to listen to dream squashers – you know who they are – individuals who tell you that your ideas or goals are no good and that you are not going to succeed. “Dream squashers be gone” is my motto and it has served me well in my legal nurse consulting business.

I choose not to use nurses who are not CLNC^® consultants as subcontractors. A group that sings from the same page (same training) is strong and harmonious. As Certified Legal Nurse Consultants we were trained by the best (Vickie) so why look elsewhere for CLNC^® subcontractors?

I choose not to get in a rut in my CLNC^® business as I try new things along the way. Perhaps a new way of marketing my CLNC^® business is in order or overdue. Perhaps locating expert witnesses as part of my CLNC^® services to attorney-clients or revamping my newsletter makes sense at this time. Whatever it is, not becoming stagnant is important to me and my business. Other business owners might not look at things differently or take the time to step back and reflect on where they want to take their businesses, but not me. Even if you have setbacks along the way remember, Thomas Edison tried 10,000 ways to make his light bulb light before he hit the jackpot. When he was asked how it felt to fail 10,000 times, Edison replied that he did not fail 10,000 times, but rather found 10,000 ways in which his light bulb would not light. My vote is for the Edison way of looking at things. How do you go about looking at things in your life and in your CLNC^® business?

Guest Blogger Profile

Lawrence H. Frace, RN, CLNC is an independent CLNC^® consultant with more than 30 years of nursing experience. He is the founder of Spectrum Medical-Legal Consulting in central New Jersey and specializes in medical malpractice cases.
 

2012 is upon us, yet for many over-extended nurses it feels like just another mile marker in an endurance race going nowhere. Depressing, but true. We trudge through the week at a dreary job, drive home fretting about money and spend our evenings robot-walking through the usual haze of homework battles and half-finished chores. Passion and fulfillment? Nope, just sheer survival. And the worst part is, most nurses accept that this is just how it is.

Buck up! You can do a lot more than barely get by – and 2012 can be the year you actually start enjoying your work and life again.

I’m not talking about forgotten New Year’s resolutions. I’m talking about truly changing the way you think about things, breaking old habits and tapping into your determination. I’m talking about taking responsibility for your own happiness. I see this all the time in your tweets, posts and status updates in social media – the desire to have someone or something sweep in and change your life. Don’t you think if someone was going to sweep in and rescue you, it would already have happened?

I’ve earned the right to be a tough talker. I know many of you think it’s been easy for me, but I started a business in 1982 when registered nurses did not own businesses. It is possible to create a life that excites and energizes you. But first you have to make a conscious choice to step out of your old, unfulfilling one (which is exactly what I did when I left my dead-end hospital job in 1982 to start my legal nurse consulting business). The choice to step out of an old, unfulfilling life is a choice you must make over and over again – if you don’t, your old patterns will suck you back in.

There’s no reason why 2012 can’t be your biggest, boldest, most wickedly successful year yet. But for that to happen you have to match your big goals with some real changes. You have to take on a wickedly successful mindset that doesn’t take “no” or “I can’t” or “I’m too tired” for an answer.

2012 is your opportunity to do it right. If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to buck up and embrace the challenge.

Success Is Inside!

Congratulations to Tracy who shared with me that her income as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant exceeded her hospital salary in her first year. Now she has exceeded $250,000! I’m confident she’ll reach the high goal she set for herself in the video. Here’s wishing her even further CLNC^® success in advance – you go Tracy!

Success Is Inside!

Did you know that the word “niggle” is an intransitive verb which according to Merriam-Webster, dates from about 1616 and means to trifle or to spend too much effort on minor details? Do you find yourself niggling away your time or do you use it meaningfully for your legal nurse consulting business? Most people claim to cherish their “quiet” time, but be honest. Do you spend the first part of your day on your email? Or, do you use that peak productivity time to knock out those hard projects for attorneys and big things for your CLNC^® business.

The first part of my day is my quiet, productive time. These are the hours before my office is officially open and all the employees have shown up. By 8:30am there’s a line of penitents forming outside my door; employees asking for my input on a project, directors telling me why they won’t meet a deadline and the janitor asking me to diagnose a toenail fungus. If I’m lucky enough to be working from the sanctuary of my home office when my phone starts ringing off my desk, I know the office is open. Knowing this madness is coming, on my best days, I use my quiet time to hunker down and work on those projects that need the most concentration.

Less successful people gravitate towards what’s easy instead of what’s productive; I call this the “feel-good addiction.” Feel-good addicts start their days differently. Since they like to feel-good they focus on minor, easy to complete tasks – email, desktop organizing, sorting mail, more email and other nonproductive (but necessary) activities. The feel-good addiction is insidious for people who like to check things off, because you feel good after completing each small task (and you get to check it off your “to-do” list). This addiction bites you on the butt because that cheap check-mark high guarantees to frustrate, overwhelm and stress you out in the long term. You feel busier than ever but are accomplishing less of real value. When we get caught up in feeling good, we never get to our big commitments.

Even worse, about the time you’ve completed your feel-good tasks and are ready to start in on your real work, the other folks in the office have completed their feel-good tasks and they’re ready to start interrupting you from the big things you are ready to do or an attorney-client calls with the latest crisis (that’s when the line forms and the phone starts ringing).

When you break the “feel-good” addiction, you actually open the doors to achievement and to your passionate vision for your CLNC^® business. Start by asking yourself; is this feel-good start to my day the best use of my time? Or, are these feel-good tasks best reserved for mental breaks throughout the day? That’s the way I use them. I, too am a happy checker-offer and I like knocking out tasks. Working for two hours on a report or project that I won’t finish doesn’t release the same amount of endorphins as cleaning out my email box (and forwarding those tasks on to others). After two hours I need to “get something checked off.” That’s when I indulge my own feel-good addiction and attack the stack of bills, plow into the financials or grab my mouse to viciously click through my email.

What you engage and focus on in your legal nurse consulting business is where you will yield results. Trivia saps the creative energy you need for accomplishing your audacious goals and will douse the fire that you need to fully engage your passionate vision. You may feel good for a while but at the end of the day, which will be here before you know it, all you’ve accomplished is of little value.

Break your addiction and work on those important projects, like that report for your attorney-client. We already have precious little free time, and it’s been mathematically proven that work expands to fill the time available, so we need to make the most of the time we have and not niggle it away. I’m not trying to say that some email isn’t important or that there might be something pressing in your in-box. If you can’t bring yourself to close your email box, at least turn off the sound alert so you won’t have the annoying little “ping” sound off every time a potential time-waster drops out of cyberspace and into your consciousness.

Remember you’re a nurse. Use your triage skills; just don’t start the surgery unless the patient is critical. Email doesn’t bleed out, doesn’t need defibrillation and, unlike an ICU patient, won’t expire if not tended to immediately.

I’ll look for you in line.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share your best tip for breaking your feel-good addiction.

Dreams, like angels, can lift us up high above the world, taking us away from the daily grind. And that’s exactly what New Year’s resolutions are designed to help us do – lift us off the ground and guide us to a dream or goal.

But how often do you hear people say, “I gave up on resolutions years ago,” or “The last time I made a New Year’s resolution was when I was in 8th grade,” or “2 weeks into the New Year, those resolutions are blurrier than my thinking after that New Year’s hangover.” I’ve said all three. How about you?

Even without resolutions, we still have dreams. And oh how those dreams lift us up – for a while, until we let them get rusty with no intention and no action behind them. Those same dreams that once lifted us up now show up as failures, and make us so miserable that we’d welcome a strong New Year’s Day hangover as a relief.

Now, I confess I’m not much into resolutions. I’m not much into hangovers either. What I am into is making promises to my dreams – the promise to go for them all the way without any guarantee of success. So instead of making New Year’s resolutions, I make promises that are important enough and smart enough to keep (or break) all year long.

Make just one promise a year and you’re a different person that year and the next and the next. All you have to do is start with just one.

Take a moment to answer these five questions:

• If I earn 25% more income as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant how would that change my life?
• If I gained 5 hours a week for myself, how would that change my life?
• How do I want to show up in 2009?
• Where do I see my CLNC^® business next year?
• What do my attorney-clients look like in 3 years?

Or, you can ask your own questions that will fulfill your dreams, personal or professional. Writing them down is important.

Next, choose the question that you are most intuitively drawn to. Don’t analyze why you’re drawn to it. Just trust that you are and write an answer to your question. Now create one promise related to the question and the answer you chose. This question and its promise is calling you for a reason – give it a chance.

Finally, create a checklist of measurable, attainable actions you will take to live your promise for 2009 and start with the first one. Check in once a week with both your dreams (which can change) and your promise checklist to assess how you are doing. Keeping your promises will bring you close enough to your dreams to keep them lifted up. Give your dreams wings to fly and they’ll carry you to new heights – personally and professionally.

Honor yourself in 2009 by making and keeping the promises that are worthy of you and your dreams.

Here’s to keeping your dreams lifted up high in 2009.

Success Is Inside!