Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years? Are you still travel nursing in the same specialty? Have you learned the new skills you wanted? A career in the travel nursing industry is designed to give you complete control over the direction you want to go. Being a travel nurse may seem like it comes with a free and easy lifestyle, but making the most out of your travel contracts requires dedication and a plan of action.
Having goals you want to accomplish as a travel nurse is a great way to push yourself forward and become the best healthcare professional you can be. Setting goals beyond your next few travel nurse assignments makes it easier to focus on what you want to gain and motivates you to achieve them. We know it can sometimes be a little tricky figuring out how to achieve your travel nursing goals—let alone come up with some—so here are a few tips to help you start the process.
1. Take A Self-Assessment
There are many ways travel nursing can help expand your career, but you should consider how it will benefit you long-term—how will you come out as the 2.0 version of yourself? You must take a hard look at yourself and define your strengths and weaknesses to set goals for improvement. If you have been a travel nurse for a while, determine if your original goals still hold true or need some reworking. Goals with no understanding of what you need are doomed to fail. This is the biggest step in moving towards your goals.
What motivates you to keep showing up every day? What do you look forward to learning the most throughout your traveler journey? When you’ve chosen the areas you want to improve, talk to your travel nurse recruiter about travel nursing positions that best utilize your strengths, improve skills that might need refinement, and even provide training.
2. Write It Down
Once you’ve determined the travel nursing goals you want to achieve, write them down! Putting your goals on paper where you can look at them instead of leaving them in your head strengthens your resolve to get the job done. This is one of the best tips to help you keep your eye on the prize—pun intended! Be sure not to show your goals to anyone else. It’s okay to have people help you along the way, but these are your goals and should stay private.
3. Commitment Is Key
Not every goal is going to be easy. Some will take work, and that’s okay! You shouldn’t feel discouraged when your ambitions take a little longer to accomplish. Dedicate yourself to your goals, work hard, and still celebrate even the little wins. Those are the steps to reaching your end goal.
4. Expand Your Horizon
Doing the same thing in the same environment repeatedly is not why most nurses enter the travel nursing industry—it’s usually to escape that mundane routine. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and try something new! Look for travel nurse contracts that fall outside what you typically do. Those positions can help expand your travel nursing résumé and encourage skill development and growth.
5. Conduct Check-In
Sticking to your goals can be challenging, so it’s important to be realistic with yourself. Set a check-in date to evaluate your progress and ensure you’re on track. Travel nursing can help you learn new things and gain a lot more experience, but you must recognize that this will happen over time as you continue moving forward. Don’t become overly ambitious and bite off more than you can chew. Your travel nursing goals need to be attainable in a realistic timeline.
During these check-ins, reflect on what you’ve been doing. If you are on track, great, but if you need to revise your goals, that’s fine too. Just keep moving forward.
Whether personal or professional, our goals help us become better versions of ourselves. Travel nurses can achieve those goals while having the adventure of a lifetime and earning great pay!
If you’re ready to take your nursing career to the next level, visit our job board for the latest travel nurse jobs to find the perfect travel nursing assignment to help you reach your goals.
