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How To Excel In Your Nursing Career

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How To Excel In Your Nursing Career

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There’s a lot of value in working towards becoming a nurse. After all, this is one of the jobs that always rates highly on job satisfaction forms. Plus, it’s interesting and challenging and also an in-demand job that has a bright future. Indeed, in an age when the future of many professions is under threat, nursing thrives — the job prospects within nursing are expected to grow steadily in the coming years!

However, it’s not as if simply becoming a nurse is enough. While there are opportunities and so forth, that doesn’t mean that everyone will be successful within their career. In this blog, we’re going to run through some useful tips that’ll allow you to really excel in your career.

Knowing Your Place

Nurses know a lot when they first begin their careers. But they don’t know everything — or anywhere close to it. You’ll learn a lot during your training, but by and large, you’ll learn most when you’re on the job.

In the early days, it’s important to have some humility and recognise that you’re still in the learning stage. There’ll be members of staff who know much, much more than you do. So make sure that you’re giving them time and space to tell you what you need to know.

Even though you may technically be of the same “rank” as other nurses, there’ll be some who are quite clearly ahead of you in the pecking order, because they’ve got a lot more experience.

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Team Player

Nursing is a team activity. If you didn’t know it before you started nursing, you’d certainly know it shortly after. If you want to excel in your career, then it’s important that you’re actively working to improve your teamwork skills.

You’ll find that you’re working as part of a team most of the time anyway. So you can either be good at it or not so good at it. If you can spend some time figuring out how to be a better team player, then you’ll find that you’re on the right path in your career.

The Right Opportunities

As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, nursing is a profession that’s expected to really bloom in the coming years. There will be a lot of opportunities. However, it’s not as if all the opportunities will be of equal quality.

As with all things, some will be better than others. When it comes to managing your career, it’s about where you work, not just how you work. You might find that your career success rests, in part, in the courage that you show. If you’re willing to move across the country because a good nursing position opened up, then you’ll have the mindset that you need to have a great career.

Upping Your Personal Skills

If you’re going to be a great nurse, then you’ll need to have plenty of technical expertise on your side. However, you’ll also need to have plenty of personal skills too. After all, when you’re a nurse, you’ll be working with people when they’re in an emotional and vulnerable state — indeed, it could rank as one of their worst experiences of life.

If you have personal skills on your side, then you’ll be able to handle this aspect of nursing with aplomb. So what are some of the most essential people skills that nurses need? We’d say compassion, communication, and the ability to think clearly while working under pressure. If you have a great grasp on all those things, then you’ll be on the right path.

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Furthering Your Education

You’ll have learned a lot during your training. But you won’t know everything. Some of the gaps in your knowledge, you can learn on the job. Others may require that you take a course to top up your education.

There’s no shortage of courses that you can take. Some of them will help you to improve at one of your existing roles. Others will give you an entirely new skill. For example, if you get medical tattoo training, then you’ll be able to help your patients that need it.

If you have an open mind, then you’ll see that there are plenty of training courses you can take that’ll make you better at what you do.

Where Do You Want To Go?

You should try to manage all aspects of your life. But especially the important elements of life, such as your career!

If you’re not taking an active role in managing it, then you could slip up into apathy and cruise control. And while that can feel comfortable, the truth is that it can be extremely problematic for long-term success. As such, it’s much better if you periodically review both where you are in your career and where you want to go. A little bit of thought can go a long way.

Strong Organisation

Organisation is key when you’re a nurse. There’ll be times when you need to work super early, times when you need to work super later. When your start times are a little staggered, there’s a lot of value in having good organisational practices.

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This could mean having an easy go-to breakfast, figuring out a commute that works for you, setting time aside to take care of home tasks, things like that. You’ll find it much easier to stay on top of everything when your life is so well organised — it really does make a difference.

Making Time For You

Nursing can be deeply satisfying, but it would be wrong to say that it’s always a walk in the park. It’s positively not. There are times when you’ll feel stressed, overworked, things like that. As such, it’s important that you’re looking after yourself.

That’s important for all professions, but especially when you’re in nursing, because the job can be so mentally, physically, and emotionally draining. It’s all about prioritising yourself. If you can set aside some time each day to just focus on yourself, then you’ll be able to keep those feelings of burnout at bay.

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