What Do Polar Bears Know About Renewal for Legal Nurse Consultants?

I just got back from an 18-day trip to Svalbard Island, deep in the Arctic Circle and halfway between Norway and the North Pole. We started in Copenhagen and finished in Oslo. The best part of the trip was spent spotting polar bears and other Arctic wildlife at Svalbard Island.

Let’s get the facts out of the way. Even at 79° North, life abounds. The frigid waters surrounding the Svalbard archipelago contain Atlantic walruses, five different species of seals and 12 different types of whales as well as cod, plankton (for the whales) and other sea life. The air is host to 27 species of migrating, and one resident species of, birds numbering in excess of three million (who counts these?) during the short summer. The island, really islands, host reindeer and Arctic foxes and, one of the main reasons for my trip, about 1,500 polar bears.

I attribute a lot of my success with LegalNurse.com over the past 27 years to my morning and evening renewal rituals and to my sabbaticals. Just like you don’t expect a battery to keep going forever without recharging you can’t expect it of yourself as a legal nurse consultant. Revitalize your mind, body, emotions and spirit frequently, and you’ll find the energy abundantly available when you need it for your attorney-clients and your CLNC^® business. But there’s more to renewal than two cups of healthy green tea and a good soak in a candlelit tub (although that does work for the short-term).

I take 12 weeks off a year and at least 2-3 times a year those weeks are a true sabbatical from work, business, email, staff and all the associated stressors. This 18-day Arctic Circle trip was one of my sabbaticals – the kind of remote place where I can completely disconnect.

As you can imagine, getting off the grid is not always an easy thing to do (you don’t just hop onto the 5:15 train to Bhutan). I have to plan for renewing my energy in the same systematic way I plan to manage and grow my legal nurse consulting education company. I set my renewal goals and strategies and formulate action steps (can you tell I’m a Pisces?). I schedule my vacations and other Vickie-enhancing activities far in advance to guarantee that no one (including me) overbooks my calendar or schedules a last-minute emergency that will completely wreck all those hours of planning (although it has happened and when it does, I adapt).

My goal is to get far away, into something so different that it forces me out of my regular relaxation routine into one that helps stretch me in different ways. So, for 18 days I was completely disconnected from my normal, day-to-day life and I allowed myself to completely relax and renew. Nature and wildlife provide two of the most powerful tools for relaxation that I’ve ever found and the combination of Arctic ice packs, mountains, glaciers and sea water was incredibly renewing. Sea kayaking, hiking, riding a zodiac raft, seeing a blue whale and worrying about nothing more than getting too close to the business ends of large, hungry, white-furred mammals renewed me in ways that a massage just cannot. Studies show that being exposed to nature may improve your memory as well as your well-being. I know it makes me feel better all over.

I’m now back at my desk and I have the energy for whatever madness life and business throw at me. My mind is clear, I’m calm (relatively) but more important, renewed. My batteries are fully topped-off and I have the energy to accomplish my Big Things and juggle my daily demands yet feel centered, even in the unrest. Renewal lightens my load, and while the world around me may be (and often is) in chaos, I can remain solid in the midst of it.

You don’t have to travel 4,500 miles or 49 degrees of latitude to renew. Find what works best for you – it may be a three-day weekend, working in your garden or lying on a beach. Whatever it is, plan it and do it. You owe it to yourself, your family and your legal nurse consulting business. In the meantime, I’d like to share some small parts of my trip with you. (The one where the bear chases Tom is really funny.)

Rested, renewed and ready for anything.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. What polar bears know about renewal is that like entrepreneurs, they’re active year round (only the pregnant females get to rest). Polar bear renewal consists of several months of summer fasting followed by eating all the ringed and bearded seals they can catch before winter comes back. I like my renewal much better – what do you think?