Professional Development & SMART Nursing Goals

Career Resources / Nursing Goals & Professional Development

As you move forward with your career, one of the most important things you can do is to establish professional development goals. Whether you’ve always dreamed of being a nurse or have chosen any other vocation, taking the time to define your vision of success, and determining what you need to get there is one of the smartest ways to assure that your aspirations will be more than a dream.

The sooner you start, the better, as more time gives you more options. Even if you decide to change course, identifying and documenting your original goals will make your shift to a new path easier.

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In this article, we’ll cover:

• What professional development looks like for nurses
• SMART goals
• How to set SMART goals
• Align professional goals with personal goals

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What professional development looks like for nurses

Every career and profession evolves, and that is particularly true of nursing. As medical technology and knowledge expand and advance, methods of care and nursing practice have as well. To stay current and relevant, best practices and professional development goals for nurses have undergone significant change.

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Some common nursing goals include:

• Acquiring skills in advancing technology
• Fulfilling continuing education unit requirements (CEUs)
• Refining interpersonal skills
• Honing a specific skill set to an expert level
• Taking a management/leadership position
• Obtaining professional certifications

The more you focus on self-development during your nursing career, the more money you could make. 

Nursing goals for improving communication

Nursing is a personal, hands-on career, and it is important that you are constantly honing your ability to empathize and communicate, whether with your patients and their families or your colleagues.  Being mindful of the way that you express yourself to each of these different groups is a good way to start, and you can strengthen both your skills and your earning capacity through a variety of exercises and additional coursework.

Whether you just want to improve the way that you engage with those around you or are hoping to leverage improved communication skills into extra money through a nursing side hustle like writing blogs or providing expert witness testimony, polishing your spoken and written abilities is a worthwhile goal. 

Writing well and speaking clearly are among the most important skills that you can have in any profession, and they are particularly valuable to you as a nurse. Being a clear communicator will help you in job interviews as you seek advancement and better compensation. Patients and their family members will look to you as a valued source of information, and your colleagues will rely on you for your competence.

Some communication goals you can consider include improving your:

• Active listening skills
• Non-verbal communication
• Written communication 
• Specific techniques like asking for a return demonstration or teach-back

Nursing goals for improving skills

While good communication is an asset, when it comes to professional development, the most important focus should be on your nursing skills. Whether you want to brush up on the basics or you are hoping to advance into a particular nursing specialty, identifying the skills that need the most work or learning about new technologies will give you the professional boost that you need. 

While you learned hands-on skills in nursing school, there’s nothing like real-world experience to teach you how to care for patients. Nursing is a vocation that is constantly teaching you new things. While there are invaluable lessons to be learned at work, you can learn about new technologies or methods through continuing education classes, or take the leap and commit to pursuing an advanced nursing degree.

There are nursing skills checklists available for you to review and determine where you have the biggest opportunity for growth.

For example, you can establish your own personal nursing goals to improve specific skills such as:

• Assessing different body systems, including lung sounds, cardiac murmurs, or abdominal assessments
• Mastering technologies like cardiac monitors or communication devices
• Learning to place intraosseous access devices or placing ultrasound-guided IV
• Using and troubleshooting medical devices like chest tubes, continuous glucose monitors, or ostomy care supplies
• Skills specific to positions in management, education, or quality improvement

Nursing goals for advancement

Are you interested in moving beyond the role you’re in now and advancing into a specialty or management? If promotion is in your future, the best way to start is to identify what you need to do to qualify for the position that you hope to fill. There are plenty of career resources that can answer all your questions and set you on a path to success.

Whatever your nursing goals are, the more you need to know about educational requirements, skill requirements, and amount of experience needed, the more effectively you can prepare yourself and set yourself up for success. In some cases you may need to invest in more education: As daunting as this may seem, if you are aware that you’ll need to do it then you can include the extra coursework into your professional nursing goals and begin saving for those costs, applying for scholarships, arranging for childcare, or doing whatever else you’ll need to do in order to prepare yourself for pursuing your dream.

Only you will know what career path is right for you. As a nurse, some nursing goal examples could be:

• Earning an advanced nursing degree
• Earning a specialized certification
• Moving from the floor to the ICU
• Advancing from being a Registered Nurse (RN) to an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN)
• Advancing from a staff nurse role into management and nursing leadership

SMART goals

As a nurse, establishing your own specific SMART goals will help you identify your goals and then come up with a plan of action for achieving them. SMART stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-based 

Setting SMART nursing goals will give you a much better chance of advancing in your career. You may be looking to elevate your professional standing by pursuing an advanced degree or moving into management, or perhaps you want to shift into an entirely different role such as nursing education.

Whatever your aspirations, setting SMART nursing goals will help you provide better care for your patients because you’ll be working towards making yourself happier and more fulfilled as a nurse. Whether you’re taking classes to learn about new nursing technologies or learning a new language in response to the need for bilingual nurses, identifying what you need to learn or do to achieve your goal is the first step to moving forward! 

When you are internally driven, you not only improve your own performance, you elevate the attitude of those around you and improve the nursing care being provided in your environment.

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How to set SMART goals

• Be specific: When crafting your goals, start by clearly defining them. The less specific you are about what you want to accomplish, the more difficult it will be to determine what you need to do to get there. Simply indicating that your nursing goal is to advance in your career is too vague. Try something like: I want to obtain my Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree or I want to move into a role in pediatrics. 
• Make it measurable: Once you’ve defined your goals, establish benchmarks. Whether you’re measuring your goal achievement in weeks or months or in years, being able to measure your progress will keep you motivated. 
• Keep it attainable: It’s nice to reach high, but you also need to be reasonable with yourself. Not everyone can become the president of the American Nurses Association. Set goals that align with your values and maximize your capabilities, your personality, and your talents. It’s important to be ambitious, but setting a goal that’s impossible to achieve will only end in disappointment. Create a realistic goal that you can accomplish in a predictable, accessible timeline. 
• Be relevant: Make sure you set goals that align with your needs, desires, and short- and long-term goals. Ask yourself if you have the resources required to achieve it. 
• Make it timely: Creating goals won’t work if they don’t have time stamps or deadlines. For example, if you want to get your MSN, choose a date you want to finish it by. Choosing a date will give you a sense of urgency and help motivate you to get it done.

Examples of nursing SMART goals

Now that you know the dos and don’ts for setting SMART nursing goals, let’s look at some good examples:

• Become a nurse practitioner within 3 years: This goal is reasonable and comes with a predictable timeline. It’s easy to figure out what you need to do to apply and make yourself available to attend school, and you can estimate how long it will take you to achieve it.
• Earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing within 4 years: RNs who set themselves the goal of obtaining a BSN give themselves the opportunity grow and expand career opportunities now and in the future. This goal works because it’s specific, achievable, and has a deadline.
• Become a nurse mentor within 1 year: Finding an opportunity to mentor another nurse is a great way to help improve your job satisfaction and help someone else. This is a great SMART goal because it’s attainable, realistic, time-sensitive, and can help your career in the future. 
• Earn a specific certification in the next 2 years: Nurses who pursue certification have a better chance of moving up the ladder or being able to switch to a different specialty. For example, Informatics is a fast-growing field so obtaining your Informatics Nursing Certification (RN-BC) would be a great way to advance your career.

Align professional goals with personal goals

Developing your professional goals as a nurse is important, but the process is a lot easier when you’re also clear on what your personal goals are, and you’re sure that the two align. When your personal and professional aspirations are in sync, you can move forward to achieve both with confidence, while when they’re in conflict it can lead to frustration.  

To make sure your personal and professional goals are in alignment, honestly answer the following questions:

• What do I want out of life?
• How will my work affect the relationships in my life?
• What makes me happy?
• What are the pros and cons of my professional development goals?
• What are the pros and cons of my personal goals?
• What resources are available to me?
• Where do I want to be in my personal life in five years? 
• Where do I want to be in my professional life in five years?

When your personal and professional goals align, you are more likely to experience satisfaction in both. Try to write your nursing goals in ways that capture your life passions.

Final thoughts

Nurses who establish goals and who pursue professional development set themselves up for advancement and success. Whether you want to earn a new certifications or hope to become a nurse educator, the possibilities are endless — but they’re more easily achieved when you clarify what they are.

No matter the professional development plan you put into place, you’ll need to maintain an active nursing license to achieve your career goals. This includes keeping up with your CEUs, certification specifications, and licensing requirements. 

Let Incredible Health help you on your path to success. We’re behind you all the way. You’ve got this!