How To Develop Resilience In Nursing

Sophie, a Substance Misuse Practitioner, talks about the need for resilience in the work place, what it means to different people and offers a helpful analogy that you too can use.

Hi guys,

I'm here today to talk to you about resilience in Nursing, how it affects you, your patients, and your team and how to be more resilient and why.

So just to give you a bit of context about me, I've been a Nurse for seven years and I have worked in a variety of different settings from the community to hospitals in different wards.

And now currently working in a prison, which as you've guessed it, is an ever-changing environment and a challenging environment, with challenging behaviours and challenging patients.

So that can be quite daunting.

So how do I face those challenges?

My Thoughts on Resilience

I have had to learn and develop my resilience over the years.

And I think resilience is a taught behaviour, rather than anything else because not everyone has resilience in them.

It depends on their upbringing, their experiences, as to whether they are resilient or not in my opinion.

And also I think everyone has a different opinion on what resilience is.

There are loads of different examples on the internet about what resilience is but I think it means different things to different people.

An Analogy For You

So let me tell you about the analogy.

The trainer said to us that we are a tall, strong oak tree in a wood full of other trees, and we have branches and leaves.

And one day, the sun is not shining and the storm's coming, at the end of the storm, there are some trees which are still standing, fully standing with their branches and their leaves and they look completely untouched and other trees have been completely taken down by the storm.

And some of them have only just had a few leaves blown off.

Now that relates to our Nursing team.

And some of us are quite good at resilience and some of us are not.

Seeking Support To Build On Resilience

So in plain terms, when we've had a bad day or a difficult situation that we faced, we as humans don't really wanna go back there and put ourself in that situation again, because it's fight or flight.

So historically, why would we put ourselves back in a situation which throws up all these feelings of fear, when we could just avoid the situation?

But that is not what we need to do as Nurses, we need to face our fears by being positive, open-minded, we need to seek support from our colleagues, our friends, and our family.

We need to learn how to bounce back.

So going back to my tree analogy, learning about how we can sway in the wind and in the storm, but not letting that storm break our branches because we know that we are good at our jobs why we became a Nurse and what we are there for.

We know what we're doing.

So why let somebody else's comments or a bad day or a bad situation or something that's not just gone quite right, why would you let that take you down when you know, nine out of 10 of your days are brilliant.

How To Develop Resilience Through Reflection

That one bad day does not override all of your other brilliant days.

We just need to learn to bounce back and sway in the wind.

And how do we develop our resilience?

Well, we have to develop it through reflection.

So if we've had a difficult day, a difficult time, we need to reflect on that.

We can use a reflective cycle, or we can just write down everything that happened and how we're gonna do better.

So that next time, when you face a situation, you know how to take it on better.

And the next time that you take it on, it will probably improve because you are equipped to deal with it.

And when you have dealt with it at the end and you've taken it on when you never thought you could, that will improve your self esteem and your confidence because you have proved to yourself that something bad happened.

You put something in place to change it and you've conquered it. You've improved it and that's brilliant.

Resilience Can Improve Your Nursing Practice

So our patients can see whether we are resilient or not.

And they can see who the strong members in the team are.

The ones that are able to bounce back and by strong, I don't mean able to take everything on and say yes to everything. They can do everything.

By strong, I mean swaying in that wind, that wind coming at their tree, at their branches, but them saying, I can change. I can adapt, I don't need to take everything on but if I need help, I will ask for it.

And that's what makes a good Nurse.

Someone who accepts change, promotes change, is adaptable, is positive, optimistic, looks after themselves, is resilient and promotes self care. All of those things feed into being resilient.

Now I know that's a lot to take in and I hope that has been beneficial to you.

Just remember guys, the analogy and how it relates to your practice.

Take care, thank you.