By now I know that many of you will have attended Congress in Puerto Rico and returned home safely. For those of you who were not able to attend, it was a wonderful occasion and an opportunity to meet with our Caribbean partners and enjoy their hospitality. The pirate party, educational sessions, along with the culmination of Colleen Walsh's excellent presidency, spoke to the energy of NAON. Both keynote speakers encouraged us to look beyond ourselves as we continue in our profession. Gratitude and giving of ourselves allow us to appreciate a better tomorrow. Imagine making a difference in the life of an amputee by giving him a limb that allows him to return to work.
I'm reading a good book at the moment, called The Power of Full Engagement, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (2005). They are two psychologists who teach that certain principles of mobilizing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy to elite athletes in order to enhance their performance. They then took their experiences and moved the same energy strategies to the corporate field. They taught people how to balance energy expenditure with energy renewable sources, as well as expand this in the same systematic way that elite athletes do by creating specific positive energy management rituals.
Fully engaged, highly positive people show invigorated, confident, challenged, joyful, and connected behaviors, whereas persons with negative behaviors are angry, fearful, anxious, defensive, and resentful. To sustain high performance in challenging times, we must be fully engaged, which means physically energized (workouts), emotionally connected (healthy relationships), mentally focused (challenging opportunities), and spiritually aligned (centered on God or a Higher Power).
After a hard shift at work, there are times when we question just how fully engaged we are. I know that orthopaedic nursing is challenging both physically and mentally and sometimes drains all of our energies at once. It is at those times that we should take a deep breath, try something new such as PiYo stretches, re-center our lives, share with another person, and laugh to become reenergized to finish out the shift. Then we come back the next day, and it is a new day for positive opportunities of networking and building relationships, a chance to take at least 10,000 steps, helping another with a difficult patient, and to be thankful for all these challenges.
NAON is grateful for all the volunteers who give their talents to maintain a thriving organization. I encourage all of you to look beyond your units at work and either start locally in your chapter or fill out a Willingness to Serve form to be considered for a national-level position. The AIM committee (Acquiring New Members) and LSC (Leadership Search Committee) are always grooming members to consider positions. I'm sure many of you do not know that during Congress the LSC held at least nine interviews while most of you were attending educational lectures.
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. - (Winston Churchill)
I would like you to stop for a moment and think about what makes a successful organizations. This is multifaceted, and one of the most important things is the people who show interest in NAON and then are mentored to become future leaders. Anyone can be a mentor, and it is mentors who can excite persons to stretch themselves to new heights. I have been lucky to have several mentors over the years who have seen a passion within me and have helped encourage this passion. It is now my turn to be a mentor to others to help them fulfill their dreams and "Fuel the Future of Orthopaedic Nursing."
It takes more muscles to frown than to smile, so this is a time to be infectious and pass on the joyful spirit of orthopaedic nursing. Smile at your patients, your coworkers, and your friends, and let them know you mean it. Laugh out loud; there is always something to find humorous if you look at things differently!!
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