Nursing is not who you are.
Unpopular opinion, I know. We spend arguably our entire life working incredibly hard on achieving and studying to get to this point. We sacrifice, we are passionate, we got it done, we ARE HERE. We made it, we’re nurses. “Everything about my life is about nursing and the fact that I am a nurse.” “It’s the first fact I say about myself to someone and I am SO PROUD.” You should be. You DID work really hard. You DID accomplish what many people can’t. You ARE working an incredible profession. I’m just asking you to remember who YOU are amongst all these things.
Identity.
It is easy to identify as a nurse or nursing student, wherever you go and whoever you speak with. But consider your identity. Consider what you stand for, where you place your values, and how you choose to live your life and make hard decisions. I’m speaking to my younger self here: do not get lost in the job title, “Nurse.” Do not lose who you are at your core, who you are if this profession is taken away from you.
If something happened to your ability to be a nurse one day, what’s behind that passion? Protect yourself from heartache and identity loss in the future, because you never know what could happen and your heart and mind deserve protection.
Separate work + life.
You start your new job, you’re incredibly excited and your surrounded by like-minded people who love nursing and your specialty as much as you do! It’s so easy to make friends and share your life with people you are “in the trenches” with for 12+ hours a day. Remember to guard yourself. I do not regret the lifelong friendships I made at the beginning and middle of my career, but I do wish that I chose more wisely who I spent time with and how vulnerable I got with my colleagues.
Not everybody is your friend—hard truth. Some people get close to you for sport, for gossip, and for personal gain. It takes years of exposing the patterns to truly see the damage that was done behind your back. Choose wisely who you get close to at work and invite into your personal life. Red flags, yellow flags, questionable flags—avoid them all. Preserve your mental health and spend those 4 days off doing what you love, spending time with your people, and taking care of yourself!
You have a huge life. Nursing is only a small piece of that. Use this career to your advantage rather than letting it swallow you up whole.
You’re in control.
We are seeing this messaging more and more + I LOVE IT: you are the CEO of your own license. Use nursing to YOUR advantage. It is okay to switch it up. To transfer, leave and travel, segue into an entirely different career using your nursing license to YOUR benefit. This is an easy concept until you start to have coworkers who discourage you from leaving them and their unit. Do not hold yourself back for the happiness of other nurses, friends, leaders…
You are in control of your career, nursing is but a tool to help you achieve your personal life goals and happiness.
Nursing is not who you are because nursing is the accomplishment that you worked so hard for to set your life up for success. There is a national nursing shortage, and the reality is, we will likely experience this for the majority, if not our entire careers. They need you more than you need them. Use this to YOUR advantage, do not let nursing use you. Congratulations, you did this AND you are in control.
