Burnout is not normal. PERIOD.

One of the hardest things about burnout is that once you are in it, it's really hard to get out of it. 

I describe it to people that it's like living in survival mode. You are on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop or a tiger to come bite your head off. You feel the constant need to protect yourself. 

It feels like nothing you say or do is going to make things better. You keep hoping and waiting for things to get easier or someone/something to save you and make everything better.

Before you know it, you are in deep burnout and don't know how to get out. Work becomes a thing you dread and even resent going to. You feel bitter and even regret the decision you made to be a nurse. 

This mindset becomes your new "normal" way of being a nurse...

If I can offer you one thing today. Please stop thinking that burnout is something that is inevitable in nursing.

Just like throwing out your back at work isn't normal, burnout is not normal and it should not be an expected part of your nursing career. PERIOD.

There is absolutely no reason why nurses should go to work with an expectation that their job is supposed to include emotional suffering and mental exhaustion.

But what can we think instead? 

Today I am sharing my beliefs about nursing that I hold in my heart for this profession about burnout:

- Nurses deserve to go to work and find valuable in what they do.

- Nurses should not have to sacrifice their mental health or physical well being to care for patients.

- Nurses deserve to have a career that fulfills them and allows them to be the nurse they went to school for.

- There is a space in nursing for all the different personalities of nurses. 

- Nurses have a right to work/life balance in whatever that means to them individually. 

- Nurses are leaders and will be a major part of the solution to the healthcare crisis. 

- Nurses have the right to a job they don't dread going to.

I believe in you and all your possibilities.

Mary B.

P.S. 

Burnout doesn't have to be the "normal" of your nursing career. I can help. I have helped several nurses, like you, learn how to take control of their career and leave burnout behind for good. I currently have one space available for my private coaching practice where I work with nurses in a 1:1 setting. Sign up today for a free consultation.