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Find your mentor, find the nurse that you aspire to be and find the person who will become your voice of reason. They will be that person in your ear helping you decipher your decisions years to come.
For me, I got lucky, my first job and my first unit supervisor was my driving force into the nurse I have become. She saw something in myself from the start I wasn’t even sure existed then and pushed me harder to discover it. She drove my passion for nursing and kept my mind curious about the human body and the healing power it has. She taught me compassion for the sick and empathy for the families struggling to cope. She showed me that being a leader isn’t demanding greatness from your team but showing your nurses what greatness is. She has been in my ear for the past ten years leading me to achieve more than I thought I would. She’s there pushing me forward when the shifts are long and the cases are complicated.
So again I will tell you to find your person, the nurse who will push you beyond what you thought you were capable of. The nursing world can be draining and difficult, you will lose motivation at times and you may lose your way for time to time, but if you have a roadmap of the nurse you aspire to be then those minor setbacks will be just that!
Nobody can make you feel the passion for nursing but you can look to someone to fuel it.
These days when I find myself faced with an uncomfortable decision or start to question my leadership skills I take a moment to remember what I was taught, who believed in me long before I felt the passion inside and think to myself what would she tell me or how would she approach this. It helps steady my thoughts before heading back to face the issue and resolve it.
Now that I’m stepping into the years of my career where newer, fresher nurses will look to nurses like myself for help, advice, or a sounding board, I find myself going back to my beginning and remembering what it was like to feel out of place and uncomfortable every shift. It was nice to see someone in your corner, rooting for you to prevail and watching you learn with each passing shift. I hope to be that beacon of hope and goodness for other new nurses starting out in this field. I hope one day I’ll be a voice in their heads pushing them through their barriers and making them move their own medical mountains for their patients.
So look for your mentor. Look for someone to push you further. Look for greatness and achieve to become it.