Are you suffering from work-related stress lately? Do you always find yourself wishing for a day off when it is just the first day of your workweek? Or are you thinking of a career shift so early in your nursing career?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, chances are, you are starting to lose job satisfaction. You find it hard to cope with your workload either in the station, in the academe, or even in the community setting. Here then are some ways to help you improve job satisfaction in the workplace and reduce work-related stress:
- Improve your nursing skills. You can improve your nursing skills by attending workshops and seminars, obtaining an advanced nursing degree, or by doing further reading on your own. It will also help you greatly if you'll have a mentor in your workplace as the person can help you greatly in areas you need to improve on.
- Accept new challenges. If you do the same things 40 hours per week and suffer from boredom, then consider breaking the monotony by accepting new challenges. Talk to your nursing superior if there are opportunities in the organization available for you. If volunteers are needed in a different nursing unit or department in the nursing institution you are working for, go for it to combat the boredom. Plus, new learnings will always come handy in the future.
- Put things in the proper perspective. No matter what path you have taken, always think that in the workplace, there are peak hours, peak days, and peak months. Supposing you work as a nursing educator, it is expected that the week before exams is stressful as lessons need to be wrapped up and test questions to be formulated. Develop a healthy perspective at work by thinking that a week spent at work is relatively fruitful despite the heavier than usual workload.
- Learn from mistakes. For nurses who lose job satisfaction because they are always reprimanded by superiors due to errors committed at work, the best thing to do is to learn from those mistakes. Remember, committing mistakes doesn't mean that you are a failure. Committing mistakes at work simply means that there are areas you need to improve on so you just have to try harder next time.
The nursing profession may be very stressful and developing positive attitudes and behaviors towards your job doesn't happen overnight. However, taking simple and concrete steps like the ones mentioned above will help you restore meaning and find fulfillment in your job.
