The Challenges of a Nursing Career
Nursing is not an easy profession, and nurses face various challenges throughout their careers. From long hours to high-risk situations, stress, difficult colleagues, and patients, it can be overwhelming and test the limits of one’s patience and compassion. However, people choose to become nurses not for the perks that come with the job but for a deeper calling.
Finding Inspiration
When the going gets tough, and nurses feel drained and lacking the usual energy and passion for their work, where do they turn for inspiration that feeds their spirit and reignites their love for the profession? There are various ways to get back in touch with the deeper meaning of life and work. Here are some examples:
The Spiritual Realm
For some, the spiritual, devotional, and/or religious hold meaning and inspiration. Faith or spiritual practices can help nurses get through the hard times and bring them back to their center.
The Life of Emotion
Some nurses find that diving into the emotional depths helps them bounce back from adversity. Processing emotions and finding deeper self-knowledge through reflection and intrapersonal insight might be their preferred avenue when they need to clear some space in their psyche and move through difficult feelings that can bog them down or trip them up.
The World of the Arts
Inspiration can often be found through the arts, whether visual art, dance, writing, poetry, theater, music, or other forms of creative expression. Nurses can seek solace in documentaries about the lives of great artists or read masterworks of literature that provide escape while shedding light on the human condition. Whether they make art, play music, cook, bake, write poetry, knit, act in community theater, or are more of an observer or consumer of the arts, this may be how inspiration comes their way.
Other Nurses and Healthcare Professionals
Career inspiration can be found in blogs, books, videos, journals, podcasts, and other forms of communication created and conveyed by fellow healthcare professionals. Nurses can feed their minds and hearts through listening, reading, and consuming material that tells compelling stories with the potential to breathe life back into their commitment as a nurse. Sometimes expression by others who share their professional experience can provide a mirror through which their healing can occur.
Nature, Travel, and the Wider World
Observations of nature and a sense of place can inspire nurses to see their lives through a different lens. They can encounter the world on the beach, in the forest, or the mountains, or in the hustle and bustle of a big city, but their inspiration may truly come more from the world around them than anywhere else.
The Body
Certain individuals find that their very core self is most easily accessed through the medium of the body. They can most readily access their true selves by dancing, gardening, receiving bodywork, soaking in hot springs, running, yoga, Tai Chi, and swimming — body-centered activities.
Renew, Revive, and Reanimate Your Career
The life of a nurse isn’t necessarily a cakewalk. The world of healthcare has the potential to sap strength, exhaust the body, dampen the spirit, and bring emotional and spiritual distress. Yet, renewal and inspiration are crucial when the going gets the hardest, and knowing where to turn is paramount.
If nurses have lost touch with what inspires them and brings solace, peace, joy, and personal insight, they can consider using the categories and examples above as places to begin their self-exploration. Nurturing these aspects of themselves and their personality on a regular basis by remaining observant of what is most effective and growthful gives them the power to heal, renew, revive, and reanimate a diminished career or a depleted personal life.
No one should spend their career sacrificing their own well-being by yoking themselves to the cross of work. Thus, being aware of the personal strategies and tools that can reinvigorate their journey is an awareness well worth cultivating.