Owning Self Confidence And Becoming Fearless

Confidence is the most important skill you can have as a nurse. Without it, we are nothing. It doesn't matter how much you study or read. If you do not believe in yourself first, when it comes time to use your skills on the floor, uncertainty will take over and self doubt will creep in. If you do not believe in yourself, other nurses will not believe in you. Strong nursing units are made up of confident nurses who not only believe in themselves, but who believe in their team. Some soul searching and digging deep may have to be done to start to gain self confidence. Believing in yourself doesn't just happen overnight in nursing school, it is learned through out our entire lives. From young ages we hear a voice that can dictate our self confidence.

What does the voice say to you when you the pressure is on? You know, the voice that either pumps you up or makes you second guess your decisions. Is your voice encouraging? Self deprecating? Whose voice is it that you're hearing? Is it fear? Another person's? Society? 

My voice says horrible things to me sometimes. "I won't succeed, I'm stupid, I'm not ready yet, everyone knew I would fail." Things I would never say to a stranger off the street, yet I say them to myself. Why? Whose voice am I hearing? Mean girls from high school? An ex? I have worked so hard to ignore this voice. Through repetition and hard work, I no longer listen to it, even though is can be deafening.

Instead, I welcome the voice. I welcome the voice so I can laugh at it and how ridiculous it is. I remind myself that it's not even my voice, but the fear of others projecting their own failures onto me. I am able to realize my inner power, and be confident to my core. 

Self confidence is the ability to believe in one's self to accomplish any task no matter the odds or diversity. Self confidence starts with truly believing in yourself and who you are. Many nursing students and new nurses struggle with self confidence... but here's the good news. Self confidence is a skill that can be taught. It can be learned. It can be learned through repetition. There isn't some magic button that gives you self confidence. You won't wakeup one day, go into the OR pick up the scalpel and perform open heart surgery. This is not what I mean by self confidence. If you are continuously putting in the work needed to become a great nurse through your studies, and your clinical work, then you should be believing in yourself that you are ready.

Overcoming fear, believing in yourself at your core and being fearless are the first steps to self confidence. It's being the nurse that takes initiative in clinical, lecture and when you are on your unit. Volunteer to be the first to try. Take the most complicated patient, offer to start every IV on the unit that day.  When you take action, self confidence starts to follow. The more you do, the better you will feel. Repetition. If you keep telling yourself you're not ready, then guess what... you won't ever be ready. 

Think about this, do you even have to think about tying your shoes? No, of course not... because you are confident in it. But I bet when you were 4 or 5 you had to think about it very much right? I remember going in to push with a patient for the first time. I hadn't done it by myself before, but I knew that I had worked as hard as I could, listening and learned from my preceptors and I believed that I was a strong, bad ass nurse who was going to help bring this baby into the world. If I had doubted my skills, or thought "I'm not ready yet" I'm not sure how it would have went. 

Self confidence is a choice that you must choose to learn and own, because it can come from only you. You are the captain of your own ship. You decide how life will play out for you. 

xx,

Jessie

P.s Join me this week in the JOD SQUAD - my private membership community for nursing students and new nurses- for a special guest interview with Sara Mornell, Confidence and Performance Coach! 

Join JOD SQUAD (and up your confidence!) here

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