Awarded second place in the 2021 AJN Book of the Year Awards in
Professional Development!
Self-care. Well-being. Resilience. Happiness. Self-compassion.
These are among today's self-help buzzwords. There are countless books,
articles, and podcasts on these topics, and many of them are essential
resources for anyone seeking solid footing in the world today. Self-care
remains an imperative for nurses and other healthcare professionals as
burnout, high attrition rates, emotional fatigue, and moral distress
loom large over us, especially in the age of COVID-19. The people who so
compassionately care for others are in dire need of care themselves.
Self-care practices are important because we need you.
We need all the gifts that you bring to the nursing profession. Your
future patients need you. Your future colleagues need you. We need you
to become the best nurse you can possibly be so that you can support
other young nurses as they, too, enter this profession. Nursing will
afford you daily interactions that will change the lives of your
patients, strengthen the resolve of your colleagues, and ripple beyond
your immediate circle to surprising places. The gifts that you bring are
beyond measure.
Imagine for a moment a patient who is a young mother. Perhaps she is
facing her health challenges while trying to be strong for her children
and partner. The kindness, wisdom, and support that you bring to your
interactions with her will have a downstream impact on her children and
family. Even her children's children. Think about yourself or your
nursing school peers who, when asked why they wanted to become a nurse,
tell a story about growing up and seeing a nurse who cared for them or a
loved one during a health crisis. So many nurses are nurses because they
experienced the compassion of someone like you when they were in need.
These nurses' compassion may have started you on your own journey to
nursing, even though they may never know the impact they had on you.
That is one of the superpowers of nursing: the impact you have on
others. You will matter in ways big and small, in ways that the universe
may never even be able to reveal to you.
But here is the hard, honest truth: while you have chosen one of the
most noble professions, you have also chosen one of the most difficult.
In your career, you will face challenges big and small, whether it is a
problematic coworker, the death of a favorite patient, or a global
pandemic. You will have bad days or weeks when you ask yourself why you
didn't choose a less demanding path in life. You will experience
exhaustion, frustration, and grief. You will balance not only your
nursing responsibilities, but also your commitments to your family and
community. But as you question your life choices and wonder how you can
take one more step forward, that voice inside you will whisper, "You are
a nurse."
Our goal in writing this book is that you never have to betray that
voice. No matter what comes your way, you will have the strength,
skills, and resilience to keep moving forward. But let us be clear: we
do not want you to move forward at the expense of yourself or your
well-being. We want you to move forward with wisdom and clarity of
purpose by using every resource you can muster. We hope that what is
contained in this book will become a valuable resource throughout the
early years of your career, and even beyond.
We welcome you on this journey, and we hope you welcome the opportunity
to explore the concept of self-care, what it means, what works best for
you, and how it can help you flourish in good times and help you grow in
difficult ones. We are especially grateful, and humbled, that we can do
it with you.
