In my many years working in the medical field as an LVN, I have run into so many different types of nurses: caring nurses, money hungry nurses, proud nurses, quiet nurses, efficient nurses, difficult nurses, overworked nurses, and many more…which one are you? And are you a happy being a nurse? I hope so because it is a much better experience to deal with you, as a patient or as a co-worker if you are simply a “Happy Nurse”.
Think about nursing school, how much nicer would it be if one of the criteria to work as a nursing instructor were to be a happy nurse? I am sure nursing school would have been a totally different experience, to say the least, and learning what we did would have been a lot more fun.
Here are three tips that can change the way you feel about your job, by changing your attitude about it:
- Live 24 hours at a time and do and be your best each hour of the day, so you don’t have to worry about the future. If you focus on being good right now, there is nothing to worry about later.
- Do not let anything overwhelm you at work, no matter how difficult, remember that if the ultimate goal is to treat the patient as if he or she were you yourself or one of your loved ones, you will inevitably do a better job. It is the simple rule to “treat others the way you like to be treated” great nursing skill, and usually something that happy nurses carry with them.
- If and when overwhelmed, embrace the challenge and simply take it one task at a time, doing what is in front of you first, and keeping in mind that there is a solution for everything and the world is not ending. Breathe and do your best; what else can you do, panic? NO. At the end of the day, you could be the patient and lucky you, instead of being sick in bed, you are earning money and helping someone who cannot help themselves. So again, be a happy, grateful nurse and you cannot go wrong with that attitude.
- Take an hour of the 24 hours of your day and give it exclusively to yourself. There must be one of those 24 hours that you can fit yourself only in there. Do it! And when you do it, you do whatever rocks your boat for that hour. Sleep, eat, exercise, watch TV, go for a power walk, do some art, go check out the sunset, call a friend and talk, facebook, go play a sport, do some gardening, take a yoga class on youtube, etc, etc, etc…That is important to stay a happy nurse.
It is all about ATTITUDE and GRATITUDE when those 24 hours are finished a lived off. Life is short and a great attitude will lead assure you are living it to the fullest the real way…Best of luck and happy nursing!
Nurse Fabi