You got into nursing to serve others and promote patient health. Yet for many nurses, their current nursing role drains their energy. Leaving your shift feeling exhausted and dreading work the night before shouldn’t be your normal. If you’re experiencing this level of burn out, you have two options: carry on, hoping something will change, or bring about change yourself.
With the second option, you’re much more likely to rediscover your passion for nursing, but if you’re burnt out at your job, it’s hard to cook a meal after work, much less fill out hundreds of job applications and attend interviews. Luckily, there’s an easier way to rediscover your passion for nursing–and it takes three steps.
Clear your mind
You can’t pour from an empty cup isn’t just a cliché, it’s scientifically proven. A study from 2015 found we make better decisions from a place of clarity, alertness, and calm–three traits which are hard to cultivate when you’re burned out at work.
Luckily, there are some simple habits you can implement to beat burnout and approach the job search with more passion. Here’s some of our favorites nurse self-care routines:
Journal about the positive in your life, including what you’re grateful for at your job. This could be a grateful patient or a coworker who always makes shifts better.
Try a new dessert recipe.
Plan a hike with friends at a nearby state or national park.
Listen to an audiobook or podcast. For free audiobooks, check out if your public library has Libby, a free app to download audiobooks.
Clean out that purse, junk drawer, or closet. Decluttering your physical space can help declutter and calm the mind.
Move your body, especially with a new workout or exercise routine. To shake things up, consider free workouts on Youtube from exercise teachers like Yoga With Adriene or Caroline Girvan.
Book a massage or a spa day.
Redefine your passion for nursing
Once you have found a sense of calm, it’s time to start the job search. By finding a new role, you can rediscover the excitement and passion for nursing you felt while in nursing school or at clinicals.
When looking at different nursing roles, ask yourself:
What aspects of my current role are my favorite?
What aspects do I prefer to leave behind?
Do I prefer to work from home, in a traditional healthcare setting, or in a hybrid role?
What populations am I the most passionate about serving? Is there a specific nursing specialty I want to go into, such as oncology nursing?
Do I prefer working directly with patients or serving them in a less direct way?
When looking for new roles, consider a nursing specialty over general RN or LPN jobs. Typically, those within a nursing specialty feel more aligned with the work they do and less burnt out than ER or hospital nurses working with patients across healthcare disciplines.
If you want to work from home, you may also want to consider a remote nursing role. Most work from home roles offer better work/life balance and a calmer work day.
Lazy girl job search
The above journal prompts could take a lot of mental energy to work through, and you should be placing most of your energy on discovering what you’re passionate about and what jobs let you explore that passion, not how to customize your resume for each role you apply to.
To devote more time to finding the right job, instead of filling out job applications, make your job search as “lazy” as possible. This might include utilizing job platforms which don’t require a resume or only present you with jobs that match your qualifications.
For nurses in North Carolina and Tennessee, one of the best free job platforms is HireMe Healthcare. Learn more and download the HireMe Healthcare app today.