I have been a nurse for over 17 years, but it was not until about six to seven years ago that I began to take responsibility for my own career development. I always relied on my nurse manager to prompt me to what I needed to do for career advancement. After many years of working long hours, overtime and bonus shifts, I realized that I was not growing and nursing was becoming very boring.
If you are facing the same issues today, I want to encourage you to make 2008 the year that you take control for your career growth. Everything good that will ever happen to your career is going to need you to take the initiative. No one can possibly know what you want, your dreams and your aspirations.

You are responsible for your nursing career, and no one else will come to your rescue. When I made that realization, the first thing that I did was enrolled in a masters program. I always wanted to return back to school for my masters, but I never had the time or the money. I am still working at obtaining a master degree even though it is taking me a long time to finish, but I am never going to give up.

Make up your mind to go forward with whatever you want to achieve this year and commit to see it come to flourish cent. When you start to take responsibility for your career, you will be surprise of what you will do. I have met many unhappy nurses that are always complaining, and blaming nurse managers and directors for their dissatisfaction with nursing. If you continue on that path, you will never discover true fulfillment in nursing. Nursing is a great profession, to really find contentment you have to start taking charge of your career.

I was working with my husband last week in the small office that we share in our home, and while we were working I encountered a specific problem in a project that I was working with. After trying to solve the problem on my own, I turned to my husband for some assistance which he also had no answer for.
Later on that night he contacted his brother in Georgia to elicit some advice which also did not help us solve the problem but brought us closer to a possible solution. Well to make a long story short, by the end of the evening we found a working solution to our problem, and this week I am half way finishing the project.

I thought about the steps that brought on this resolution, and I can only conclude that’s the power of coaching. With coaching you have two minds working together for the same cause, which means that you cannot fail, and you can only succeed. In this scenario if I insisted on solving the problem on my own, not only it would have taken longer, but it is possible that I would not be able to solved the issue.
The decision to partner with my husband in this project made available to me resources that were not available to me before. For that reason I know as nurses begin to make the decision to partner with coaches for career advancement, I can assure you that the possibilities are going to be endless.

Couple years ago when I decided to return back to school for a master degree in nursing I was amazed to see many nurses at the bedside were not very supportive of my decision to return to school. Master prepared nurses that I worked with at the bedside told that it was not worth returning to school mainly because the pay is much better at the bedside than anywhere else.

It is true that the annual income for nurses at the bedside today is considerably higher due to the chronic staffing shortage, but it is not necessary because they get pay more than nurses in non-clinical settings. The reason is the basic principle of supply and demand. There is a greater need for staff nurses at the bedside than any other nursing position, so to attract nurses many facilities offers sign on bonuses as high as $20,000, bonus shifts as high as $200 for an 8 hour shift.

With these kinds of offers, today many nurses are working as much as 80 hours a week. It is easy to see how a staff nurse can make $100,000/year comparing to a master prepared nurse making $60-$70,000 dollars/year. I see many of these nurses today very dissatisfied with their jobs, they may be making a lot of money, but they are very unhappy people. They are chronically tired, moody, grumpy and after many years their career stagnated because nursing suddenly become a job where they exchange time for money with no satisfaction or fulfillment.

Returning to school whether for your BSN or your master, will open new set of opportunities for you, the reward may not be monetary in the beginning, but you will be a happier person.