Instant or brewed coffee?

Funny question I know.  As I continue on the journey of learning, understanding and passing on education to the community of Nurse Power, I have come up with a bit of a theory.

In life, with most things, we want results now…or perhaps yesterday.  Sometimes we hit the jackpot and get this type of result.  More often than not, it takes work…a lot of work and seeing something not reach completion is the result for many of us, myself included.

With this is mind, I have come up with a theory on the importance of rolling up the sleeves, taking time and backing yourself to a committment of completion.

This week at Nurse Power, we are looking at the importance of taking time to study yourself, that is, human behaviour, as it gives you a better understanding of others.  This is not a quick, jackpot kind of journey, it takes time.

Here is the theory with a big thanks to Graeme.  When you are at work, what is on offer – bulk instant coffee, easy, quick, cost-effective, however it does not give you the result you are after…

The other option is to take a little more time, grind the beans, brew the coffee, allow time for the coffee to embrace the flavour, it has more steps to completion, it costs more, but hey…tastes great.

Will you take the quick, easy and cheap way to learn about life as a nurse? Or will you take the time, the challenge of not receiving your result instantly, and brew yourself an amazing and oh so rewarding life?

In the meantime, have a wonderful week and choose wisely how you take your ‘coffee’.

Until then,

Bron 🙂

Picture url: http://www.thehungryandfoolish.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/coffee.jpeg

What makes a great nurse?

This week, Nurse Power is looking at the qualities of what makes a great nurse.  Is it education, skill and expertise? It is so much more.  Here we chat about a great place to start in examining this topic, who you need to be to be able to do what you want to do.  Cheers to all the great nurses, each and every one of you.

Is it possible to believe the unbelievable…

Busy, busy, busy…that is the catch phrase right now.  At work, at home, kids at school, is it just me, or is life even more frantic these days?

When you are in that whirl wind kind of state, the ‘to do’ list, the memory and energy is stretched to capacity.

Some function at their best when the wind is blowing up their back….others on the hand, do not.

It is times like these, when it is critical for you to believe the unbelievable….the belief that individuals in nursing, and allied health can have choice…be completely satisfied with a job well done, know the feeling of appreciation and believe they are worth it and more.

How do I know this…because I too have been a non-believer…the thing is, if you take a moment, reflect on where you place yourself in the priority list, you may be in for a little surprise.

As a nurse, you care for everyone you touch, not only in the workplace, but also in your downtime…are you really ever off duty…probably not.

You may know the value of wellness and self-care, you have good intentions to go for a nice walk or read the latest best seller, it is the actual valuing yourself and giving yourself some ‘me’ time that does not happen as often as it should.

Nurses get tired, shift work does that to you.  Perhaps it is the lack of motivation, due to many things that stops the small self-care moments to take place.

This week is the week to take a breath, and be aware it is a choice to not do something for you.

We are running a free monthly online session series at Nurse Power on this very topic, pencil October 3 in your diary, we are holding a one hour session on the topic of self-care for nurses covering motivation and why it gets hard at times.

Click the link below to go to our website to register for this free session.

http:/nursepower.com.au

Wishing you a week filled with possibility, if things take longer than you want, or you think it is not happening, become a believer, it will happen…eventually.

Little by little, we will make a difference.

Until then,

Bron 🙂

Try to sit down…

A funny thing happened the other day, well, not to me personally, to a friend of mine… it was something I thought turned out to be great advice!

It went something like this…

Following a run of ‘gunna’ disease… you know, ‘gunna’ do this and ‘gunna’ do that, but not actually getting anywhere kind of situation, my friend was patiently trying to get her teenager to actually focus and get some overdue tasks done.

The said teenager has a habit of blaming the dog, the weather, the alignment of the planets but never herself,  for why she never finishes her plans.

The question was asked of the teenager… ‘Try to sit down”, the teenager promptly sat down in the chair. Her mum said “get up please and try t sit down”. In a state of confusion as only a teenager can demonstrate, she sat back down in her chair.

Her mum said “you are not listening… try and sit down”, by this time the teenager had gone from confusion to a what the heck is wrong with you mum? look, and slammed herself into the chair in a wee bit of frustration!

My friend looked at the teenager and said “you see love, you either sit in the chair or you don’t, it is not possible to try and sit down”.  It took a minute or two to sink in, and then the dawning of understanding began…

The thing is, there is no such thing as try… it is simply you either do or you dont.   This struck a chord with me as I remember making the same comment myself many times over the years.

I will try to have a good day, I will try to understand why the staffing levels are the way they are, or I will try to contain my frustration of picking up after the previous shift.

You see, I get it now….finally. Either I understand and accept the things I cannot change or I choose not to understand, and take complete responsibility for my thoughts and actions.

I have a new tool in my tool box, not only for those tricky situations at work, but also for my teenager and the ‘try and sit down’ experiment.  I know it works.

Please pass this on to all the nurses we know, let’s see if we can either do it or don’t… both at work and play.

Have a great Tuesday.

Bron 🙂

Reality Check

I had an interesting thing happen this past week, to be honest, it caught me by surprise.  As most of you know, I am on a mission to find out about nurses and how we are travelling along in the chaotic world of the health care sector in 2012.

As part of this mission, I have researched for quite some time, looking at why we do what we do, what is our  underlying driving force…other than money and the odd bit of caring of course.

Well, it was like this, I have been talking a bit about values in the past few weeks, what we value the most, what this means, and how we should honour ourselves in making sure our values are the top priority every day.  Check out last weeks “Çhronicles” for more information on values (click through the welcome page of the Nurse Power Facebook to find out how to get it).

On the weekend I realised something…I had missed putting into action a bit of what I had said, I was blaming an external reason for why I was less than satisfied professionally. What a crock!  That is not the case…insert reality check here!

The truth is, I am responsible for my feelings, I am responsible for how I react to things at work.  I am responsible for living my values…back to basics for me.

I can live my values fully even though I might be working in an environment that does not align with me…that is totally ok.  It is up to me to be the real deal, nobody else can do this for me.  As my little three year old said to me “chill mummy”…out of the mouth of babes! I wonder where he learnt that from???

So the end of the story is this, even though I might not enjoy 100% of what I have to do in a less than positive environment all the time, after all, people don’t choose to have accidents or disease (well…most of the time), I can still be honest, have fun and have integrity. After all… it is all about us, isnt it?  The shining stars we know we are.

Has this ever happened to you?  We would love to hear your story.

Have a great Tuesday!

Until then,
Bron 🙂

Try something new…

Over the past week or so I have been busy working on Nurse Power stuff and came up against a big problem…(insert bad word here) technology! I am used to dealing with sick people, I can pop in a catheter, throw down an NG tube, wipe people’s butts, BUT… working with technology just about did me over.

You say, come on Bron, get with it, it is the way of the future. Yes it is, I just don’t seem to get along very well with my computer at times. It took two days to load something over the weekend, it was very frustrating, I almost gave in to the pressure of giving up.

Yes, I hear you say, so what is the point? The point is this, I felt the fear of something new, I felt the pressure of throwing up my hands and saying, “bugger off laptop, this is not for me, I had better stick to what I know”.

So I dug deep inside, gathered my positive thoughts and spoke firmly to myself … “do not give up, this will work…eventually”.

I learnt to walk my talk, and make a conscious effort to acknowledge the fear of failure and do it anyway. The story is – face the fear and do it anyway.

No I am not a tech head but I now know what it feels to like to achieve something I really wanted… Yeah!

Try it for yourself, think of something you want and give it a go, just do it anyway! Please share this with all your fabulous nursing friends and let me know your thoughts…let me know the fight with technology was worth it!!

Until then, have a great day.

Bron 🙂