Are you a new nurse? Are you a season nurse? Or are you starting on a new unit? No matter if you have been in the field for years or you are brand new to the career, I bet you and the coworker next to you had a moment or more about if you are an excellent nurse. A good nurse. A strong nurse. Or if a sudden realization that as a nurse, you feel nursing school was a mistake. In everyone’s career, or most people will experience this sense of self doubt. This sensation is imposture syndrome. Imposture syndrome is when a person in a field or career, as it states, feels like an imposture. If you really are an actual nurse. No matter where you are in your career, if you went through training and work as a nurse, you are a nurse.
The important thing to understand about Imposture Syndrome, and a way to work through this mindset, is a few new mind sets. One, is to know your worth. You have put in the effort and worked hard to earn the letters RN after your name. If you are changing positions or a facility, your experience needs to be considered. What you experienced and did at one hospital transfers to another. When I moved across the country, the salary I was asking for surprised me, until I took my experience and education into consideration. Then, keep in mind everything in life is about progress to being better, not always perfection. Things can happen and mistakes will occur, so as a nurse at any experience level, it is necessary to make it a learning moment to continue progressing, because perfection is not attainable.
A good nurse needs to stay open and continue to learn. Medicine and nursing are so wide, expensed and constantly changing. As a nurse, you will never know everything and will continue to need to learn to stay relevant in the unit or field of nursing. The ultimate idea you need to remember is to be open and honest with yourself, success, and failure. Failures will occur, but don’t allow this to be your identity. Review your success and be self aware. You are a rounded person who will have a combination of wins and lost.
You need to stay positive. You are a nurse. Use some of these as a daily affirmation. Don’t allow the Imposture Syndrome to stifle your career.