Nursing is such a rewarding career and there will be a lot of amazing days when you see patients recovering and feel a huge sense of satisfaction. But it is also an incredibly demanding job that involves long hours and some really tough situations. All nurses will experience stress and burnout at some point in their careers and knowing how to deal with it is crucial. Those difficult times will pass eventually but having strategies to keep your motivation up will help make things much easier for you. These are some of the best ways for nurses to deal with lack of motivation.
Dress The Part
People often say that dressing well helps with motivation in your career because you feel more confident, but does that really apply to nursing? After all, you’re all wearing the same scrubs every day, so it’s not like you have much freedom to jazz things up. However, taking care of your appearance will still help you feel more positive, so make sure that you look after your scrubs properly and make an effort to present yourself well.
You can also customize your scrubs to some extent, giving you the opportunity to inject a bit of fun back into your work clothes. There are some great companies like Harmony Surgical Designs who sell all sorts of scrub caps with cool designs on them. It’s only a small change, but it helps you start the day in a more positive way and it brightens things up for patients too.
Say No To New Responsibilities
Sometimes it can be hard to say no when somebody asks you for help but if you are feeling burned out and unmotivated, it’s important that you learn to set boundaries. If you are asked to take on new responsibilities and you agree to it when you are already feeling overwhelmed, this will just make things worse. People will be understanding if you are honest with them and you explain that you are overworked at the moment and don’t want to take on more stress. All nurses experience this at some point, so people will know where you are coming from and they won’t be offended. However, if they struggle to understand where you are coming from, you may encourage them to learn about physician burnout and how this can affect other healthcare professionals, including nurses like yourself.
Set Boundaries
Often, you won’t be leaving work when your shift is actually meant to finish. It’s common for people to stay on for an extra hour because they have patient charts to finish up or because they are short-staffed. But once you get into the habit of doing this, it’s so hard to manage your stress. Those extra hours you work are eating into your personal time when you should be relaxing and finding ways to manage your stress. If you feel that you are constantly working late, speak to your superiors about it and see what can be done. You need to put those clear boundaries in place so you can manage your work-life balance.
Every nurse experiences problems with motivation and burnout at some point. Keep these tips in mind and you will find it much easier to make it through the difficult periods.
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