62// Why Loving Nursing Isn’t Always Enough—And What to Do About It

You love being a nurse—but lately, something feels off. Maybe your nursing job isn’t giving you the same sense of purpose it once did. In this episode, Bonnie explores why passion for nursing alone isn’t always enough to keep you fulfilled in your career—and what you can do to bring meaning, clarity, and direction back into your professional life.

She shares how to evaluate your current nursing role through the lens of your strengths and values, plus practical ways to take your next step with confidence—whether that’s a new nursing job, a leadership opportunity, or a renewed mindset in your current role.

Key Takeaways:

• The real reason loving nursing doesn’t guarantee long-term fulfillment
• How to assess if your nursing career still reflects your strengths and values
• What to do when your current role no longer fits your professional goals
• Small shifts that can help you rediscover joy and motivation at work
• Why self-awareness and reflection are the foundation of career growth

👉 Download the free Nursing Career Growth Roadmap (link below) to start clarifying your next steps and build a career that grows with you.

Transcript

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There have been two instances in my nursing career when I felt a genuine disconnect between my professional identity and the work I was doing. I am sharing these experiences with you because many of you might be going through similar challenges. The first time I was at the bedside in the C-T-I-C-U, about seven and a half years into nursing, my love for critical care had worn quite. Then I would come to work, do my job, but I wasn't in love with it anymore. Every morning I had to talk myself into showing up. Reminding myself to stay focused so I wouldn't make careless mistakes. When my boss noticed that my enthusiasm had gone or was gone, that moment freed me. It was confirmation that it was time for me to move on. The work was no longer aligned with my goals, but this realization empowered me to take the necessary steps for change. The second time was years later, I had a graduate degree. I was working in a specialty that matched my strengths perfectly. Another dream job on paper, but something still felt off. I realized that while the work aligned with my skills, it no longer aligned with my values. Isn't that wild? My goals had changed and I had to accept. That it was time to let go. That was hard. And so if any of this sounds familiar, if you've ever thought, I like what I do, but I'm not sure I love it anymore, you are not alone. It's okay to feel this way, and it's okay to be uncertain about your career path. Sometimes the issue isn't your workplace or your coworkers. Sometimes it's that your work has stopped aligning with your strengths and your values. That's what we're diving into today, how to identify what really matters to you in your career, and how to start making sure that what really matters is in conjunction with your work. Are you feeling stuck in your current clinical environment? Do you want to make a change in your nursing career, but not sure what to do next? Exhausted, burnt out, and maybe even ready for different leadership? I'm Bonnie Meadows, a board ified clinical nurse specialist, influential leader, career coach, and wellbeing coach. Being in the nursing and healthcare profession since 2004, I have felt stuck and unsure about what was next for me. I wanted to be fulfilled in my purpose, to have a voice at the table and to be a resource for others. I kept telling myself I wanted more, but didn't have the direction I needed until I found clarity and career growth strategies for experienced nurses like. Me. In this podcast, you will find simple tactical steps that allow you to gain the clarity you need solutions for how to grow even without supportive leadership and guidelines for setting boundaries at work so that you can grow purposefully in your career as a nurse with a graduate degree who makes a huge impact in the profession. So get ready to trade your scrubs for yoga pants, pop in those earbuds and let's chat. And before we get started, I have a little something to help you with this process. It's called the Nurse Career Growth Map. It's a free downloadable guide designed to help you identify your strengths, values, and next steps in your nursing career. It's a tool I often use in my own coaching sessions, and I'm excited to share it with you today. You can grab it by clicking the link in the show notes. Alright, let's get to it. Knowing your strengths and values is one of the most important things you can do in your career. Here's what I've learned from working with many ambitious nurses. One job will rarely meet all of your desires to grow because you have so many ideas, you have so many things that you want to do. As you are exploring the world and get exposed to more, you start to understand how much more you can do and how much more is available out there for you. To be able to make an impact, and that's okay. Your strengths and values act like a compass. They show you what energizes you and what drains you, where you need to make adjustments. When you feel restless or unmotivated, that's often your internal signal that something is not right. Returning to your strengths and values provides the clarity you need. To either reimagine your current role or prepare you for your next role. Now, there are usually two groups of nurses who find themselves in this situation. The first group, you're in a job that doesn't use your strongest skills or your natural gifts. You've outgrown it and it no longer challenges or excites you. And then there's the second group. You actually like your job, but something still feels incomplete. You may be using your skills, but not in a way that really lines up with your deeper values and goals. Both of these situations can create a sense of frustration or stagnation. The key is recognizing which one you're in so you know what kind of change you need. A new role or just a new outlet. So let's talk about the nurse career growth roadmap and how it helps you. The downloadable free guide that I talked about earlier, how that helps you to understand, which change you need. Inside the nursing career growth roadmap, there's a section that helps you reflect on your strengths, values, and your career priorities. So you can start getting clarity on your next steps. It walks you through questions like, what do I enjoy most about my current work? What do I find most draining? What values feel missing from my role right now? If you haven't downloaded your copy yet, this is just your reminder to pause this episode, go down to the show notes, click on the link, and go ahead and grab that free copy. Once you go through it, you might realize one of two things, you're in the wrong seat. Your job isn't using your strengths or supporting your values, or your job is a good fit, but you're craving more room to grow. For example, I had a colleague who loved her job. Was very excited about the work, but still wanted to do something different. It wasn't meeting all of her needs. We went through a little bit of this exercise. And when I came back to her, she said, I went through the exercise and what I figured out was that I really like where I work and I like what I do. I just needed a new outlet. I found this like she started teaching on the side and she was like, I find that to be very, very rewarding. That's just a good example of. Liking your work, especially if you're in a high level job, or you've kind of reached where you generally wanna be at this point in your career and you just have a inkling for something more. Sometimes that something more is outside of your work. I was just talking to another colleague of mine the other day they are at an executive nurse level and they're wanting to do something different. Well, that's something different for them. It's just like, I don't, I actually don't wanna move up. I, I wanna leave room for me to be able to build a business or get into other nursing avenues outside of work. Those are prime, examples of. How you nurture your strengths and values in being able to do other things and think outside of the box of everything at work is not going to fulfill my career needs. It's just not. So let's repeat that again. Everything at work and in your job, and you can climb to the highest level. But if you are multi-passionate about a lot of things and you are one of those people who really likes to get into different things and you like to make a big impact, then just be okay with, I'm going to have to work and do something else. And that's something else might be something paid. Or it might be something that you don't get paid for, but you're growing a reputation in other ways to be able to be at the table to make an impact on our patients. If that second one is you, where your job is a good fit, but you're craving more room to grow, then let's talk about some options that you can start to do. Some small things that you can start to do, to build some layers, of work, outside of work, because that's essentially what you're doing. Me in my nursing professional development role, I am building layers outside of work as president of the North Carolina Nurses Association. Building layers outside of work can be examples like joining a professional organization once you have joined, finding you a good, committee or counsel or task force that you can be engaged in in order to get the work done. Volunteering on a project, mentoring a nurse, or just exploring even a creative outlet like you just might be someone who likes to fix up houses. Maybe you need to do that. Maybe it's not even in nursing, but you still like your job. Maybe you wanna build a business on the side. You still like your work, you have no desire to leave your work. Now, some these, the narrative will, will try to say out here that you should leave your job and make six figures owning your own business. It is, great to own your own business this podcast, this business that I have, it is me being able to use my gifts and talents in a way that I can't use them at work. And it allows me the freedom to use them in the way that I want to use them. Now, there are things at work that I don't mind not having freedom doing I don't mind having constraints with doing 'em. I don't mind falling in line with doing it because it's a part of the greater work. And so really looking to explore those creative outlets is what you really need to think about. So when you start expressing your strengths in new places, new spaces, you expand your skillset and the joy you find there often skills back into your daily work. It's what keeps me grounded in my daily work, my work here with you. Helps to keep me grounded because I have to stay on top of conversations with people and what books I'm reading to educate you on ways that you can build yourself in, build yourself up in your career, and how you can grow in your career. And so remember this, if you can imagine doing more, that means you already have the capacity for it. When we're completely overwhelmed, we can't see past tomorrow. But if you're thinking, I wonder if I could, that's your capacity saying, I'm ready. All right, so let's round this on out. Here's the good news. You don't have to make a giant leap to start feeling like you are on the right track again to start feeling normal again. I've been reading the book The Slight Edge, and one of the main lessons is that success and growth happen through small, consistent steps taken over time. For those of us who like to go hard or go home it's a total change in mindset and it is hard, but it is something I keep coming back to because I understand that when I take small, consistent steps over time, then things just kind of normalize and it's not this total shock to my system and total switch in my schedule, but it's more so just little things that I've incorporated into my life to make things better. There's small steps that, that I take to make things to grow. I tell people all the time, and I just really started talking about this at the last convention. About a month ago, I was talking to some nurses about their involvement within the professional organization they said, oh, I think I'm gonna start small over here. I'm gonna do this little thing over here. And I said, listen, no one is expecting you to jump straight to the board. There is plenty of work to do outside of the board of directors. Trust me. I know. I did that work for seven years. Before I even ran for the board of directors, our professional organization work is a long game. You can be involved in as much as you want, but it's a journey and there's no rush to get to wherever you want to go. I mean, really, if you think about it now as president. I've gotten to the mountaintop of the organization once I'm done, like even a past president said, there's some mourning that happens right after because. You now have to rearrange your thoughts around, okay, well what else am I going to do in the organization? Because there's no more moving up. There's moving outward and doing other work outside of the organization and digging deeper into the organization. I love seeing my past presidents around digging deeper into the organization. But I said all that to say. Make it a long game. Take as much time as you want. There's no climbing there. There is a little bit of a climbing of in a ladder of a professional organization, but even after you're done climbing the work is still there for you to do so just fit. Get it in where you can fit in. Instead of trying to overhaul your entire career, try to pick one value or strength you wanna focus on. Identify one small way to express it each week and then reflect on how it feels over time. If you're in transition and looking for clarity about your next role, my one-on-one career clarity coaching sessions, will help fast track that process. So if you like your current role, but you wanna deepen your sense of purpose, I can help you design small creative strategies to bring that alignment back. Either way. There's a next step waiting for you. So to wrap this up, clarity and alignment come from understanding your strengths and values. That knowledge helps you make clear, confident decisions about what's next without guilt or confusion. And here's the truth. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can take this work one day at a time. You can explore and reflect, or you can walk through it with me in a coaching session. Remember, download your free copy of the Nurse Career Growth Roadmap right now in the link in the show notes. It is your first step towards getting your career in alignment with what matters most to you. If this episode resonated with you, share it with another nurse who is ready for more alignment and joy in their career. And don't forget to subscribe and follow the Ambitious Nurse for more conversations about purposeful growth and career fulfillment. Until next time, keep showing up, keep growing, and keep building the career that fits you. See you next time. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with another nurse who may be unsure of where to go next in their career or maybe need some career clarity? Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple Podcast. It brings me so much joy and so much encouragement to know this podcast is helping you now go get the career you want and not the one you settle for. And I'll meet you back here next Thursday for another episode. See you soon.