Motivation

Published

Hi everyone! I'm a nursing student, this is my first official semester of nursing school. This week marks week 6, and I still don't know how to keep myself motivated. I feel like I'm trying the best I can, yet I'm basically failing half of my classes. Since it's only week 6, I don't know if I should be concerned or if I should simply be okay with it. I guess my question is, how do I keep myself motivated, and what can I do to study better? I would really appreciate some help, I know I'm not the only one that feels this way, yet I don't know how to talk to someone about it.

To answer how to keep yourself morivated, it's important to understand what is un-motivating you. Is it your grades? Is nursing school so far not as appealing as you thought it would be? (I was bored to tears my first 8 weeks until we got into med-surg stuff.) Is it juggling the workload?

Everyone has different reasons to feel unmotivated, so it's imperative you know why you are feeling that way.

To answer how to keep yourself morivated, it's important to understand what is un-motivating you. Is it your grades? Is nursing school so far not as appealing as you thought it would be? (I was bored to tears my first 8 weeks until we got into med-surg stuff.) Is it juggling the workload?

Everyone has different reasons to feel unmotivated, so it's imperative you know why you are feeling that way.

So far I'm very interested in what's going on. I think my biggest thing is that my grades are bad and that bums me out. At the same time, between work and school, I'm having sort of a difficult time balancing those two things. Usually when I get out of school, I go to work & after work all I want to do is sleep...

It is diffcult, I worked with techs who went through nursing school while balancing 12 hour shifts, families, and school. They were exhaute at the end, but they did this for themselves and their families. I guess all I can say is that you need to stay hungry, there needs to be a reason you are there. Since you are working I assume you are paying for nursing school? That to me is my biggest thing. I am getting my BSN now, if I screw up and fail I won't get my tuition reimbursment and I can't afford that sort of financial loss right now.

Ok, so now we have a working point.

1. The "bad" grades. How bad? Are you comparing your core nursing class grades to your prerequisite science grades and want, understandably, the same high grades? That can be a ROUGH adjustment. Our nursing program instructors warned us about this, so it at least wasn't a big shock. I had all As in all my pre-reqs. By the time I was nearing the end of some classes in nursing school, I was praying for just a passing grade. Like every. Other. Student.

Don't get me wrong. My first couple classes, I got C's (which is close to failing.) Then a B in one class and an A in another, and so on and so on. So I'm NOT saying, hey, get used to it, that it's C's from here on out.

But, there comes a time when just letting go of really wanting all As and B's takes backseat to just wanting to understand the material and pass.

Notice I said 2 things there.

1: understand the material

2: pass

Because of NCLEX style questions, you can fully understand the material, but get tripped up in the answers.

If that is the case, get a good NCLEX book and practice practice practice NCLEX style questions.

Gotta cook some dinner, so I'll return when I can reply to the rest. Keep your chin up!

+ Join the Discussion