Coming up with nurse entrepreneur ideas is overwhelming at first. You want to leave the bedside but not sure what you could do or if starting a business is for you. Not everyone or every nurse is cut out to be an entrepreneur. It takes soul searching, lots of discussions with family and friends, tons of research and a whole lot more.
So where do you start when you have a million ideas running through your head?
I truly can relate to this because I was there back in 2009 when I decided to take my hobby business of selling physical products on eBay and turn it into a real business. I wanted to be a writer, a coach, a consultant, a marketer, create my own information products, write a eBook and a physical book. Whew, talk about feeling overwhelmed! I couldn’t pick one.
I had so many ideas, I didn’t know what would work, what I really had a passion for, what my natural talents were and how to go about researching it all.
So here’s how I got started.
I learned this technique from reading the book Coach Yourself To A New Career and later heard others talking about this as well calling it a brain dump.
Here’s how it works – Start by getting all your ideas out of your head and onto paper or putting your fingers to the keyboard, writing every idea you can think of.
Yes I said every idea you can think of.
Don’t stop writing or typing until you have exhausted every last idea.
Now stop! Walk away from the computer or paper, let your ideas sit for a few hours or even a few days would be better.
Come back to it with fresh eyes and a cleared head. Go through each idea and see what pops out at you. It could be something you have a passion for or are really good at and enjoy doing.
Starting your own nursing business takes self examination and honesty about yourself and what makes you happy.
If you’re having trouble here, ask yourself these two questions ~
what really makes you happy?
You need to pick something that you enjoy, that motivates you and gets you jumping out of bed in the morning. You really, really need to love what you do in order to get through the rough spots in the road ahead. Loving what you do will keep you going and away from getting a real job when the going gets tough, so keep this in mind when choosing your nurse entrepreneur business.
Why do you want to start a nursing business?
I want you to think outside the box here, is it because you want more time to spend with your family, or the freedom to travel when you want or is it because you want to be creative and expressive with your talents? I don’t want you to think it terms of money here; it needs to be personally rewarding to you and how you see yourself living your ideal life as a nurse entrepreneur.
This will help you later on when putting a plan together for your nursing business. If spending time with your family is your reason for starting a nursing business, don’t start a business that will take all your time away from your family. Yes, when first starting out you will need to put time into getting the business off the ground but it should not be how you run your business for the long term.
There are many more questions that need to be answered here at this stage but not enough space to list them all. I’m hoping this gets you started though by getting all those ideas out of your head and onto a visual platform that you can look at and answer these two important questions before going further in the process.
But if you are still struggling picking just one or two ideas to work with, my recommendation is a book that really clicked for me, called Coach Yourself to a New Career by Talane Miedaner, a renowned life coach. Although the book is not written specifically for nurses, it will help by taking you through a series of self assessment exercises to help you come up with your idea nurse entrepreneur business along with case studies, how to figure out your natural talents (very important to know) and putting it all together with a practical plan to achieve your goals both personally and professionally.
There are fresh ideas and unique ways of thinking about your nursing career in this book that I have not heard of before, I know you’re gonna love it! I still refer to this book for guidance and inspiration on my journey as a nurse entrepreneur.
Tina🙂