Nursing is one of the most rewarding but also one of the most difficult career paths to take. Even before COVID-19, the burnout rate of nurses globally was 11.23% (Agustina & Tahlil, 2022). In some countries, that number has increased to 83% (Agustina & Tahlil, 2022). In the United States, there have been countless media stories about nurses leaving their jobs due to burnout.
Chances are, if you are a nurse, you have also thought about quitting your job. When nurses face many challenges, what can you do to protect yourself from burnout?
Gillian Colville, a clinical psychologist, and Susan Affleck, the head nurse of a children’s hospital in the United Kingdom, have authored an article about how remembering why you became a nurse may help defeat burnout (2022).
Below are a few actions you can take.
Pay Attention to Your Body
Nursing is not only physically demanding but also mentally and emotionally exhausting. According to the Webster dictionary, nurse means “a person who cares for the sick or infirm.” Sometimes you do so much on your shift that you do not feel like you are caring for anyone.
Instead, you are running around tackling emergency after emergency. As soon as you fix one thing, something else falls apart. By the end of the day, you are worn out and cannot remember where you parked 12 hours ago, let alone remember why you chose this career path.
Stress can manifest in different ways: trouble sleeping, stomach upset, high blood pressure, headaches, and more. Issues can be worse if we try to ignore them. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the signs of stress and do something about them.
What can we do? First, start by stopping.
Stop, Reflect, and Remember Your Why.
If you had an extremely difficult day or are starting to feel the effects of stress, it is time to stop and reflect on what is going on and how you feel. This is a great time to think about why you became a nurse.
Whether you have been a nurse for two months or 20 years, everyone’s journey starts with a story of why. Why did you choose nursing? Frequently reminding yourself of why allows you to find meaning in your work and helps you recapture the passion you felt when you first started.
Writing down your why in a journal is a great start. The act of journaling itself can provide some stress relief. Combining that relief with your reason for becoming a nurse may help reignite your passion for nursing and put meaning back into your work.
My Why
For me, nursing was a calling that I could not ignore. I tried. When I went to college over 15 years ago, I was going to be a teacher, but a voice kept pushing me toward nursing.
The voice started in high school, but I ignored it. When I started college, my roommate was a nursing student, and I remember thinking, “Awe, I wish I was a nursing student.”
From there, the voice just got stronger and stronger. I started working at a hospital in the dietary department, delivering trays to patients. I loved it. I loved working at a hospital. I admired all the nurses I saw every day. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to be a nurse.
As a result, during the summer of my sophomore year, I changed my major from education to nursing and have never regretted it.
How to Get Started with Your Why
Journaling isn’t for everyone, so it can be difficult to get started. Using a journal prompt can help. Journal prompts are questions or statements to jump-start your thinking process and motivate your writing.
Here is a list of journal prompts to get you started:
• How did you feel on your first day as a nurse?
• What drew you to nursing?
• Was there a person that inspired you to be a nurse? Who was that person?
• What does nursing mean to you?
• What was your greatest nursing moment?
• What is your proudest moment as a nurse?
• How did you feel on the day you graduated from nursing school?
Writing down the answers to these questions may reduce your stress and stimulate your enthusiasm for nursing.
When you are feeling stressed, stop, reflect, and remember your why. Write it down, put it on a notecard, and place it everywhere. Post it in your locker. Have it in your pocket. Set it on your dashboard, so it is the first thing you see on the way to work and the last thing you see when you drive home. Share it with friends, family, and coworkers. Inspire others to remember their why.
On the darkest and cloudiest nursing days, your why will be the light that guides you through.
Resources:
Agustina, & Tahlil, T. (2022). Nurses’ Burnout and its associated factors and impact on the
quality of nursing services. International Journal of Nursing Education, 14(2), 24–33.
https://doi.org/10.37506/ijone.v14i2.17982
Colville, G. & Affleck, S. (2020). Remember why you became a nurse in the first place. Nursing
in Critical Care, 25(2), 71-73. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nicc.12501
Merriam-Webster. (2022). Nurse. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nurse
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