Death of a Perfectionist

Hi, my name is Sarah, and I am a perfectionist. I thought that nursing school had pretty much tamed this instinct. Well, a bit. Have I mentioned that I was raised as an only child, got straight A's in pretty much everything, and like things...well, a certain way? Yeah, I am just a bit Type A...

Today I got back a grade on a paper. 3/5, and I FREAKED. I mean, that is a D-. I don't get D's (except for that one Algebra 2 test-but I digress, Algebra and I did not get along.). I feel like I am a decent writer. I even do it for fun. I wanted to throw a full-blown, screaming, kicking, stomping, and crying fit!  But I am mature, so I settled for crying and an (albeit) slightly panicked email to my instructor about my grade, did I read it correctly, and what could I do to improve in the future?

Ahem...Followed by another email, minutes later, asking if he thought I was going to fail out of the program (This was not my proudest moment). Luckily, he is a great instructor, and though I was full on ticked (though mostly at myself),  and bordering on psychotic, he emailed me back within minutes to say; "Your paper was excellent, until you got to the end and did not address what the rubric stated. For that, you lost points. It is just 2 points. This will not kill your grade. You are doing excellent in clinical. There is no way I think you are going to fail out. Breathe.... However, if I ever get a call for a job reference, I will have to mention that there was this one assignment that 2 points were missing on!"

My story is mortifying to me, mainly that I freaked out so much over a few points, but also because in my wrapped up, stressiness of nursing school, I also hurt myself by not slowing down to just read. It's also funny. I burst out laughing at the last line of the email, basically putting things in perspective for me. I share this to you for three reasons: 1)Nursing school is hard. You will love it, and I promise you will HATE it. There feels like there is never enough time in the day. 2) This is just a season. Less than a year from now I will be done, and I will not care at all about this 5 point project, care plans, or my grades. 3) Breathe. Life is not perfect. I am not perfect. You are not perfect, and nursing school will all but kill the perfectionist unless we learn to laugh it off when falling flat on our faces, brush ourselves off, and try again.

30 school days to go! (until Christmas break that is…)

I make it through nursing school the same way I did through teaching when I was feeling burnt out. I count the days until I get some real time off. I started the countdown right before school began with how many school days until Christmas break, and I'm actively counting them down. Realistically I probably should have just done all days but that seemed like too big of a number to start with (and hence depressing). There really is no such thing as a day off in nursing school. Days off are spent on reading, care plans, projects, papers, and studying for exams. Yuck. Second year did not begin slowly, but instead with a "here's your 5 papers/projects and 3 clinical rotations, oh and by the way, the exams will now be comprehensive. Any questions?" Okay...slowly retreat...no-one is looking...the door is righthere.

I am in week three of year two of nursing school and am so ready to be done! I know that I still have so much more to learn but I can't help but wait until the day where I no longer have homework and I actually have a job where I can clock in and clock out at the end of the day. Before the school year started I thought I had made my mind up. My next plan was to go straight into an RN to MSN program to work on getting a license to be a (FNP) family nurse practitioner. That was, until school started and I felt swamped,and sick of the school, overwhelmed, and did more research about actually being a nurse practitioner!!! While I am sure it can be a great career, I have no desire to spend the next 3 to 4 years (still) in school, trying to gain experience as an RN, and still trying to be a mom to my kiddos. After that time would be spent wolfing down lunch while filling prescriptions and trying to see X amount of patients each day. No thank you. I have already been in school most of my children's lives. Likely I will go on at some point and probably get a masters degree in either nurse education or clinical leadership depending on which direction my career takes me.  I have thought both about being a nursing instructor someday and/or a case manager at a hospital or clinic someday. What I really think I need right now though is to finish school and to go jump feet-first into the workplace of nursing and learn what it is I truly like.

This is one way that nursing school has changed me. I am beginning to value experience more than I value having a plan. I am beginning to value the importance of staying flexible. I really think that I need to experience things in order to know if they are for me or not. At this time I am on the cardiac floor and have yet to decide if I like it, though I have only done one partial day as I write this. Oncology was OK, I surprisingly loved the orthopedic floor because of all of the education involved and the fact that the patients aren't really sick most of the time, I had a bit of a liking problem with the medical floor and truly enjoyed the surgical floor. I mostly loved my experience in the emergency department this past summer. It's hard to decide what I want to do, and I know that the job market will be a big deciding factor in where I end up (at least to begin with). I currently am in the process of setting up a pediatric rotation and I'm also trying to set up a day shadowing on a labor and delivery unit. Currently my interest lies in either Pediatrics, mom/baby nursing, or emergency nursing, and I know that this is a pretty wide range. :-) In my studies these are also the things I have been interested in as well as mental health nursing and clinic nursing, so we will really have to see where my experiences in school take me in the real world.

At this time, I plug ahead, counting the days until freedom and paid work again!  Christmas, come as quickly as you can!