If you want this to be your best year as a nurse, do one thing. Pick one goal and put all of your focus on it. Ignore anything that does not help you reach it faster.
In this post I will show you what that looks like, how to tell if you are a level 1, 2 or 3 nurse, and the mistake most nurses make.
Keep the flashlight steady
Picture this. All of your career goals will come true if you can shine a flashlight on one task with full focus. You have two choices. You can move the flashlight around, or you can hold it steady in one spot.
The answer is to hold it steady. A steady light gives you strong focus, and focus leads to success.
This is how to approach your year if you want to grow your career and your income. Set a goal and go all in on it. Ignore anything that won’t help you get there faster. Put all of your energy into making big progress.
To know what to focus on, you first need to know your level.
The three levels of nursing
I believe there are three levels of nursing. To grow your career and income, figure out which level you are at. Then focus 100% on the tasks that move you up to the next one.
Level 1 nurses
At this stage, work on your nursing skills. Gain experience and build your name in one nursing niche. Your goals should be about your skills and growth.
For example, you might set a goal to pick up extra hours at work. That lets you pay off debt and save or invest. Or you might set a goal to gain a set amount of experience as an ED nurse, ICU nurse, travel nurse or nurse practitioner. That’s it.
Someone may tell you about a new investment or side hustle. Ask yourself if it will help you excel in your current role and reach your skill goals. If the answer is no, ignore it. Get good at your job and become an expert in your field.
Level 2 nurses
When you do well in your role and people notice, it may be time for level 2. This is when you start to grow your career and maybe build a business tied to nursing.
Juggling nursing and a business is hard. You may need to cut back your hours for a while, or even take a break, while you build your product or service.
The way to make that work is to find a job in a high-paying city with a low cost of living, or at one of the highest-paying hospital systems in the country. When your product or service is ready, you can go back to nursing with the goal of bringing in more clients.
At this stage, start building an email list. Give your audience value through regular emails. As you learn to deliver your product and get good results, you can add more offers or grow the business. Put your energy into either nursing or the business at different times. For ideas, see the most profitable nursing businesses.
Level 3 nurses
You reach level 3 when you have mastered nursing and have a product or service that is proven and can grow. Now the focus is short-form content and growing your brand on many platforms. We did this with Nurses to Riches, and we now have over 60,000 followers across all of our social media accounts. Your aim is to show up everywhere in the nursing world.
This is also when you build a team to handle parts of your brand. Then you can focus on growing your following and your business.
For example, we found out that editing video took over 30 hours of our time each week. The first thing we did was hire an editor. Next, we hired a virtual assistant to help us find nurses to interview for our podcast. We used onlinejobs.ph because you can find good, low-cost, English-speaking workers from the Philippines there.
At this level you become a CEO. You hand off the creative tasks and focus on the plans that grow your reach and your income.
The mistake most nurses make
Most of the advice out there is level 1 advice, and it can pull your focus away from what gets results. We hear it all the time. Work as much overtime as you can, get every certification, go back to school for a master’s degree, and keep working more.
Trying to do all of these at once, or even two at a time, is a good way to delay getting to level 3.
A quick win you can do today
Make a list of all the nursing tasks you think you should be doing. Then cut the ones that don’t fit your level.
At level 1, cut anything that won’t help you become a six-figure nurse while you keep your quality of life and your sleep. At level 2, cut anything that won’t help you build and launch your product, service, business or side hustle. Focus only on what is left.
Here are three things almost every nurse should cut right now:
- Overworking yourself with no goal in sight
- Trying to do too many things at the same time
- Not saving or investing any of the money you earn
Once you know your goal and the steps to reach it, ignoring the noise is one of the best tools you have.
To see this in action, read how Monica and I paid off our debt and how to work less and earn more as a nurse.
Your next move
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The Nurses to Riches Accelerator is the plan Monica and I used to go from $37 an hour in New York to $143 an hour in California: license, city, hospital, and what to do with the money after.
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Written by Jason, RN. I went from $37 an hour in New York to $143 an hour in California and paid off $128K of debt in under a year. I share our numbers in the Nurses to Riches newsletter and on YouTube.