Not so long ago, you had a job and a professional path that you stayed with for your entire life. Essentially, changing jobs was not something many people did. If you worked in a store, you remained in a store. If you were a construction worker, you would always be a laborer. The same was true with accountants, teachers, drivers, and anyone else.
Things have, thankfully, changed since then. Today we’re not expected to stick with a job forever, and many people have two or three different careers until they find the one that works best for them. This makes sense; if you don’t like what you’re doing, what’s the point in continuing to do it?
This is why so many people decide to go back to school and retrain as something else, so they can start in a new career that will suit them better and that they will enjoy more than whatever it is they’re doing at the moment. Nursing is a perfect example of this, and those who are going back to school to retrain for a nursing career are finding they finally have the job satisfaction they’ve been looking for. Here are some reasons why this is.
Nursing Is Open to All
Although nursing is a great profession with many opportunities and areas to advance into, and it offers a high level of job satisfaction, it’s not for everyone; this is just something you need to be aware of right from the start. There is shift work to consider, the job itself is difficult, and you must be a loving, compassionate person who wants to help others. Not everyone is capable of doing this – it is just not in their character, and they would be uncomfortable and unhappy if they became a nurse.
However, with that being said, nursing is still open to everyone. If you have the attitude and skills that are required in a competent nurse and believe that this is what you’re meant to do with your life, there aren’t many obstacles to admission. This is a challenging job, but it allows anybody who wants to take on that challenge the opportunity to do so if that’s what they want.
The following personality characteristics are ideal in nursing:
- Patience
- An eagerness to learn
- The ability to listen
- Compassion
- Being well-organized
- Committed to the work
- Capable of working shifts
- Interpersonal skills
- Physical fitness
So Many Options
The word ‘nurse’ is an umbrella phrase that defines the profession as a whole but may not properly reflect what you really want to accomplish in your career. This is due to the fact that there are all kinds of nurses and so many options within this profession. Unless you do your research and find out more about the different branches of nursing to go down, you might not realize there is so much choice.
For example, if you like working with children, you might become a pediatric nurse. The same is true if you want to work with elderly people. There are trauma nurses and OR nurses, as well as various degrees of nursing within each field. You can look into nurse practitioners or look for ways to enhance your RN status if that’s something that will help you in your life and career. Make sure you know the options you have and don’t settle for something that will make you miserable and cause you to regret the path you took.
It’s a Calling
For some people, even the notion of questioning whether nursing is the right thing to do would never occur to them; nursing is just something they know they must do, and they would sacrifice anything to get the chance to be a nurse. This is because nursing is sometimes seen as a ‘calling’. Essentially, people who feel this way understand that there is no other profession they would ever want to consider, and they would do whatever it takes to become a nurse, even if it means making less money, returning to school, or completely reorganizing their life.
This feeling could have been with them for as long as they can remember, but due to circumstances, they were unable to train as a nurse, for example; life does occasionally get in the way of us doing what we want to do.
What we should not allow to happen, of course, if we want to be as happy as possible, is to give up the chance to retrain as a nurse later in life when our circumstances change, and we are finally able to. At this point, your calling can finally be fulfilled, and the fact that you can train online and study as much as you can in your free time before qualifying is a fantastic thing that means you can now do whatever you want, and it’s never too late to start.
You’ll Have a Lot of Help
If you’re retraining to become a nurse later in life, you might be concerned or uncertain as to whether you’re making the correct decision. It can be frightening to make such a major shift in life, particularly if you haven’t been working or if your previous job had nothing to do with nursing or caring for people.
However, there will always be those who will stand by you. Ideally, some of this support will come from people you already know, such as family and friends, but in addition to (or instead of if they are unsupportive for whatever reason), there will be many others outside of your present circle who’ll watch out for you and help you when you need it. These will include other people training with you, course leaders, and anyone who wants to see you succeed in life.
With this sort of support and encouragement, you’ll feel much more confident about making the necessary adjustments in your life and being the nurse you’ve always wanted to be. As you can see, retraining as a nurse needs to be thought about carefully, but if you realize it’s something you want to do, don’t let anything get in your way.
