Overcome Your Doubts: Hear This New Legal Nurse Consultants

Starting a new career can be scary. If you've worked as a nurse for a long time, the concept of starting a business and being your own boss can seem overwhelming. This is true for any entrepreneur. We all have fears and doubts we must deal with when we try something for the first time.

In your mind, do you ever hear the following (or similar):

Who do you think you are?
I can't do this.
What was I thinking?
This is impossible.

If you don't hear such things in your mind, you are one of the lucky ones. Most of us have these negative thoughts sometimes. Some of us have them a majority of the time. But these thoughts are dangerous and need to be stopped. Such thoughts:

Undermine our efforts.
Stifle our creativity.
Lower our self-esteem.
And, most dangerously, become self-fulfilling prophecies.

How can you stop negative thinking? You need to do two things.

1. You need to interrupt the negative thought. You can do this by mentally shouting "Stop it!" or by creating a physical interruption. For instance, you could make yourself do the chicken dance every time you hold onto one of these negative thoughts. This might be sufficiently embarrassing to help you stop. Just imagine doing the chicken dance in an important meeting! Or, you can choose something less obvious to others, but just as effective. In the book, The One Minute Millionaire, the authors suggest that you wear a heavy duty rubber band around your wrist and pop yourself enough to sting every time you catch yourself thinking these dangerous thoughts. How you choose to interrupt these thoughts is up to you, but you must do it every single time.

2. You need to replace the negative thought with a positive one. Simply replace the thought with its opposite. "I can't do this." becomes "I can do this." Nothing fancy. No memorizing. Just a replacement of a part that does not work for you with one that does.

Try this for the next month.

Organizing Yourself and Your Legal Nurse Consulting Business

What is organization? Most people think of a pristine, clean space with a place for everything and everything in its place. This is not necessarily a true definition. Rather, organization is being able to find what you need when you need it, easily and quickly. Several methods of organizing are commonly found in books and on websites. Let’s review the two most common:

Out of sight.

If you are this type of organizer, you work best if items are stored out of sight. You prefer filing cabinets with files neatly hidden inside, lots of drawers and other spaces to keep most items out of sight. Only what you need to work on is out and visible. The benefit of this organizing method is that you are less distracted by other items that need your attention and can focus strictly on the task at hand. Also, to outsiders, your workspace may look more ‘organized’ (tidy).

The disadvantage to this method is that something important might get tucked away in a file or folder and forgotten about. So, to effectively use this method, it is important to have some sort of tickler or reminder system in place to keep track of what is being done and what needs doing. We will discuss tickler systems in a later post.

Out in the open.

This type of organizer prefers to be able to see everything at a glance. If you organize this way, you may have files scattered about and piles of papers. What appears to others to be chaos is actually your system. For you, if something is out of sight, it is also out of mind. The strength of this system is that everything is where you can see it, so items don’t get hidden away and forgotten. Don’t forget, though, that you, too, can benefit from the tickler systems we will cover later.

A drawback of this method is that it can be highly distracting to have numerous projects vying for your attention at once. This type of setup does not pose a problem for everyone, however. And if you work better being able to see everything at a glance, you can very well make this system work for you.

However, an out in the open system does not have to be messy. If you would like to be both neat and organized, you can do so, even with a visual filing system. One of the easiest ways to do this is to have open filing cabinets. Some of these look like milk crates, but are made to hold hanging file folders. Keeping one of these on or close to your desk for current and high priority projects can help you keep on top of your assignments. For completed projects or those with a much longer deadline, consider using banker’s boxes and label them colorfully, so they catch your eye. This way, you not only have a system that keeps you organized, you also have built in storage if you later need to keep old files off-site.

The key thing to remember is that “organized” and “neat” do not always go together. Rather, it is important to find a system that works for you, allowing you to get the work done well and on time. If others perceive it as messy, that is their problem. If you feel your system needs some work, and that it could be tidier, we will discuss ways to tackle that issue soon.

Setting Your Business Goals

As a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant, you wear many hats, including that of business owner and developer. So, it is your responsibility to keep your business moving forward toward the goals that you wish to reach.

What goals, you ask? You DO have business goals, don’t you?

If not, how will you know where you are going? How will you know if you get there?

If you want to go and to grow, you need goals. Setting them can seem daunting, so let’s break it down into manageable steps. In this post, we’ll cover the basic guidelines and the first two major steps.
While this is geared toward setting goals for your business, keep in mind that the rules can be applied universally to set goals in any area of your life.

Let’s begin:

First, we’ll cover a few goal-setting guidelines.

1. Remember that this is about the journey, not the destination. This may seem counterintuitive to the whole goal setting process, but goals are only milestones along the way. Think about the mile marker signs on a highway. These are how goals work. They act as a marker to let you know where you are in relation to where you began.

2. Still using the mile marker signs as an example, like them, your goals need to be measurable. You want to have a way to know if you have reached that marker. If the goal does not lend itself to measurement, give it a 1-10 rating and set the level you want to reach on that scale. Are you at a 2 but wish to be at an 8? Then you have work to do. But you also have a way to gauge your progress.

3. Finally, your goals should be written down. Committing goals, dreams and ideas to paper has a certain magic about it. No, not witchcraft type magic, but the magic of making them more real, more concrete. And if you look at them every day, you will internalize these goals, which will in turn make reaching them easier.

So, now to the FUN part of the process.

Let’s start big. How do you want to be remembered? Answer this question not only in regard to your business, but to the other important areas of your life. Do you want to be remembered as a workaholic who never had time for family and friends? Or would you like to be remembered as a successful businessperson and human being? Write down what you hope people will say about you after you are gone.

Now, think about what success means to you. People have different ideas of success. While we may want some basic things the same, such as financial security (if it exists), the specific definitions of such terms vary with the individual. Do you want to be wealthy? What does that mean? A millionaire? A billionaire? All of your debts paid off and plenty of money to make ends meet? Or does it refer to your personal and business relationships and their depth? Write this down, also. Define success for yourself. Not what you think it should be because of what popular culture or your upbringing tells you, but what you feel deep in your gut. Take all the time and space you need to get this definition right for you. No one has to see this but you.

Time to Invest in Yourself

It's already February. Do one of two things for yourself:

1. Become a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant (PLNC) or
2. If you're already a PLNC, take your PLNC practice to the next level.

How, you ask, can I do this. It's simple.

1. Get your PLNC certification: Commit to only 2 days at a PLNC live course or take the PLNC Video Course, Audio Course or E-Course at your own pace. Don't wait any longer. Now's the time to invest in yourself and make lots more money.

2. If you're already a PLNC, you need two items to help you. First, get busines forms designed especially for PLNC practice and second, get marketing help that has worked for PLNCs.

No more excuses. You can do it. Now's the time to achieve the success and personal happiness you want. It's in your hands.

Write it Right: Rules for Legal Nurse Consultants

As a PLNC, you will often have to put your thoughts and findings into writing. This intimidates a lot of individuals. Why? Because many of us hear our elementary and high school English teachers in our heads as we sit down to write:

• Your writing needs work.
• Use proper grammar.
• Work on your spelling.

These are just a few of the admonishments we heard in school. But you are no longer in school and no one is grading you. That said, your written materials do need to do their job. The better you write, the better you will serve your attorney. Scared? Don't be. Writing doesn't have to be chore. And it doesn't have to read like a textbook.

Make your writing easier in three simple steps:

• Brainstorm
• Freewrite
• Revise

That's all there is to it. Once you do those three steps, you have a report you can confidently share.

Another way to approach writing is to write the way you talk. If you have trouble with this, try recording yourself as you give the report as you would if the attorney was sitting in front of you. Then, you can transcribe the recording, make small revisions and you're ready to go.

Invest in Yourself: Get Your Legal Nurse Consultant certification in 2 days

Now you're thinking about 2009 and the security, or lack thereof, of your job. How can you use your nursing skills, become more marketable and enjoy what you are doing all at the same time? Get your Professional Legal Nurse Consultant^TM certification in 2 days! Don't wait any longer.

You are worth it and deserve to be happy. Think about it: you spend the majority of your day working. Why not work at something you are happy about doing AND make incredible money at the same time? You are important. Treat yourself to something interesting, exciting and intellectually stimulating at the same time.

No reason to spend a lot of money getting your dream job. Certification as a PLNC^TM will greatly enhance your credibility and marketability. You can do it.

Make the commitment for one weekend (Sat & Sun) to attend a PLNC^TM live course:

• Miami
• Phoenix
• Washington, D.C.
• Nashville

If you can't get away, then take the PLNC^TM E-Course, Audio Course or Video Course. All formats include your PLNC^TM certification.

No excuses. Register today! You can do it.