Confidence Building

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

Hello everyone! I need some suggestions for building confidence in my decisions. Today i had a lady come in with an allergic reaction to a wasp sting. i was able to get her seen by the urgent care center that contracts with our company, and the RN i work with told me i made the right decisions, and that i triaged her properly. trouble is i have no confidence in myself or my assesments. Both of the RN's i work with are constantly telling me i am doing well, that i am good at my job, and i want to be able to be confident and serve my patients better. can you all help me?

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I think confidence is something that you have to allow yourself to have. In my opinion, if you have faith and listen to those around you who are telling you that you are doing a good job - THEN IT MUST BE TRUE!!!!

I know from personal experience that confidence is a difficult thing to maintain....but remember that you are special, and everyone has their strengths and weakneses - embrace and learn from all of them!

I hope that wasn't too sappy (I am a little sensitive!)

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Confidence for me slowly has come with repetition and just taking it day by day. Some days I will still digress in my decision making but I know that I am feeling better about coming to work and feeling more confident about taking care of my patients and knowing that I am giving them the best care that I can. (sorry, bad run on sentence. Night shift nurse here.) When I feel like I am having a bad day, I will rely on my coworkers to help get me through it and then be able to call on my friends outside of work to help get me through it. You can also start to write a journal so that you learn past mistakes and see how you have grown from the beginning.

Hope that helps. Good luck!!!!

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Specializes in NICU.

I have a problem with confidence as well. I was actually thinking about this just last night and wondering how on earth I'm gonna make a good nurse when at times, I have trouble believing in myself. I know logically that I can do it but sheesh, sometimes I just feel inadequate. Maybe that just comes with working with some of the not greatest clinical instructors. Hopefully it will come as I do everything more and get familiar with it.

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

Wow...there are times I feel totally confident, and times I don't! What I do it examine things I don't feel confident about and research them so I have the info! I feel more confident the more I know...something I know about myself...so if I feed my confidence the info, it tends to improve! But that was learned from years of learning myself as well as my job! Takes time!

I think the more you do things, and the more time in the job the more confident you feel! Kinda the 'been there done that' deal!

Just recently, I found that my taped reports were very scattered and although I have a hillarious disposition and fun voice (as all the RN's tell me..LOL! They say I should be an Airline Stewardess! LOL!), I didn't feel very confident in getting my info across and would stay way too long after shift re-explaining myself to my satisfaction. SO....

I took some time out and wrote what I was going to say on the tape! Just started this week..and wow..what a difference! Heck I have been doing taped report for 4 years..and still, I had to bring up my confidence by organizing my thoughts and writing them down so I didn't say 'uhhhhhh' forty times a patient! LOL!

Find the ways you feel more confident about yourself and test out a few techniques on improving one situation at a time :). Me, next week...it will be leaning a few more Spanish words to help my Hispanic pts more (and that one will continue for a time :)...I never felt I got a full assessment or info across, even with an interpreter...so best to learn more medical words).

Good luck, and be positive and proactive about yourself :).

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