How many times did you fail?

[STLocomotive]

Whether it's school-related or at work, I'm curious on how many little (or big) failures you went through before sticking through and finally feeling comfortable/succeeding.

I've been reflecting a lot on my little failures in nursing school, like overthinking questions or my clumsiness for example.

It feels like everyone's been suggesting other areas that aren't nursing to me, at work or in school... But I want to be a nurse and I know I'll end up beating myself up forever if I decide to go into a different field.

I guess maybe I'd like to read some uplifting things after having a rough day.

Or maybe I'm thinking about how many times I'd have to fail for me to realize that me being a nurse would never happen, or to estimate how many times I'd have to fail for me to finally succeed and have the profession I want...

Regardless, I'd like to hear everyone else's stories to give me hope to keep going forward, and hopefully, it'll do the same for others with the same feeling.

[direw0lf, BSN]

You know that saying if you keep making the same mistake you must not want it bad enough? Yeah ignore that saying. I made mistakes studying for the nclex, sometimes reading wrong on my practice questions and there was one nclex question that I still did the same mistake on and new it but I'd just already clicked to the next question. But we learn from our mistakes. View them as a lesson. I still passed the nclex in 75 questions. You are still in nursing school and your job with mistakes. I'm still in my job and I've made a ton of mistakes as a PCT. I'll go home and think "I forgot to do that!!" I've called the unit and apologized and asked them to do something that needed to be done. People will say what they will but you know what your goals are just understand how to achieve them because it won't be the same way that I achieve mine or your coworker achieves his/hers. When you make mistakes at work, keep smiling to your patients. I like to turn my mistakes into something to laugh about. I mean these are not mistakes that lead to any injury of course. For example, I've bumped into the lab draw cart sent every single empty collection tube onto the floor and after apologizing and cleaning up I said "you should see me with the med cart" or "crash cart" (haha). You know, smile about your mistakes. And in school, your cohort probably does not want to all do the exact same specialty in nursing. Your cohort all has different goals just like some will make mistakes in peds but excel in psych and others excel in medsurg but do poor in research, etc. Anyway, when you become a nurse you won't suddenly change, you'll be you mistakes and all. No one is perfect. You need to be safe though. Being safe means you can critically think about your patients. Try to spend less time thinking "how many times I'd have to fail.." more time about how you can be a safe nurse.