Afraid I'm not going to cut it

Nursing Students General Students

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Specializes in Psych.

I had my first skills checkoff today. Bed bath/making an occupied bed. I was SO sooooooooooo nervous, and I felt like a bumbling fool the entire time. No self confidence whatsoever. I passed, but the person who checked me off (he's the lab manager) DEF noticed my nerves and kind of jokingly told me to not be so nervous. I can't be like this all the time or I am never going to make it through clinical. I know part of my nerves had to do with the fact that it was my first checkoff and had no idea what to expect, plus I didnt really know the lab manager and he's kind of intimidating. I need some advice. How do you guys calm your nerves?

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close your eyes, and imagine a happy time/place that makes u physically smile , take some slow deep breaths and u will feel much better

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Specializes in Trauma & Emergency.

Honestly I truly believe that the only thing that makes that nervousness go away is experience. It takes time to feel comfortable in your nursing skills and having someone watch over you is never comforting. Also be reminded that nursing instructors understand that this is not something that you do every day and usually cut you some slack.

Keep practicing and reaching for your dream. As long as you have the compassion & confidence, your comfort level with the skills will come with experience.

Good luck!

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Specializes in Med-Surg/Tele, ER.

You can also practice the steps of the skill over and over. If you don't have the time to do this, read the skills checklist then picture yourself going through the steps in the correct order. The more prepared you are, the easier it is. And it will get somewhat easier as you pass more and more skills!

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Specializes in Psych.
You can also practice the steps of the skill over and over. If you don't have the time to do this, read the skills checklist then picture yourself going through the steps in the correct order. The more prepared you are, the easier it is. And it will get somewhat easier as you pass more and more skills!

Thanks. I think what made it even worse is that we really had no time to practice during skills lab. It ended early b/c of snow. And then they only opened the lab for students to practice before checkoffs for like 2 hrs before lecture (I did go in and practice, but only got a short time with the mannequin b/c there were so many others waiting). I did go over and over all the steps in my mind though, but I was STILL so nervous I fumbled through it. Meh. Hopefully it will get easier from here on out.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

While it's good to try to reduce and manage stress levels to calm your nerves a bit ...

At some point you have to simply get comfortable with the idea that there WILL be times in your career when you will be nervous -- and you need to learn to keep a clear head so that you can continue to function at those times. There is an old saying that "A hero is not someone who is never afraid. A hero is someone who does what needs to be done in spite of being afraid." The same is true of nervousness. You have to accept that some level of nervousness is a routine part of life -- and learn to live and work while being nervous.

There will always be moments in your career when the situation is tense ... or new ... or scary in some way or another. The skill of "rising to the ocassion" is one you can learn. It sounds as if you did that in your first check-off. You were nervous, but you performed adequately. Pat yourself on the back for that and recognize that strength that you exhibited in succeeding in spite of your nervousness. With more experience, you will learn to channel that nervousness into high alertness to help you succeed in particularly challenging situations.

The mistake is to think you should never be nervous. Nervousness in some situations (such as your first skill check-off) is normal, and to a certain extent, healthy. Use the suggestions above to help you keep the nervousness within reason, but don't make the mistake of believing that nervousness is always bad.

Good luck to you!

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OMG, I just went through this last semester. I was a nervous wreck and still am. Its alot of pressure especially when you don't know what to expect or what is expected of you. Take a breath and don't worry. Soon making a bed will be the least of your worries. Don't worry you will only be doing this for this semester. You are going to look back in a few weeks and totally see what I mean. Honestly they would not fail you in clinical if you didn't make the bed right. Focus your energies on vitals, patient care and MEDS. Those are things that will get sticky.

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I talked to some of the nursing students at my school and they feel the same way.

I cant believe it, but they said the instructor is like right in their face for checkoff.

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Specializes in ICU.

As others have said, experience in that skill will quickly decrease the nervousness you feel about peforming them in front of others.

Even more so, I think you may find that the actual experience of having a skills pass off will become less and less tense. Having someone analyze your every move for the first time is going to have you bumbling around and second guessing everything you do, whether its performing a central line dressing change or changing the bed sheets. After the 5th or 6th time, not so much. Don't worry, you'll make it through ;)

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Lol. I failed bed-making the first time, I was so bummed. I left the class that day thinking "I can't be a nurse now! I can't even make a bed!" However, I did pass the second time and have passed every single skills checkoff since then. The nerves go down with time, but they will always be there. I'm always stumbling through them.

Just to let you know how nervous I was, during vital signs checkoff my pulse was 145 (talk about tachycardia) and my BP was 140/90 (talk about massive hypertension). LOL

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In the beginning, you do things like the bed-making checkoff and get super stressed over them. Not without reason - they have high standards for the bed-making checkoff! And chances are you feel totally dumb and incompetent for being stressed about something like bedmaking.

Then you get in the hospital and do it with the NA a time or two and discover it's actually not that big a deal in real life, and not particularly exacting, and they don't even want you to do the hospital corners because it's too tight around the feet, and your incompetent bedmaking skills are really perfectly adequate.

Which isn't to say that all skills end up being as simple and routine as bedmaking... but many of them end up being less exacting with more margin for error than it feels during the checkoff.

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Well i use to get the same way before my check-off. SO I decided something I was doing had to change. So, I started to practice with the skills a whole lot. I practice for hours if I had to. I did this so that when I had to perform this skill in front of a teacher for a grade, it was like I had commited it to musle memory. It became second nature. To me, knowing that I had all this practice time under my belt gave me confidence and also calm down my nerves.

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