My New Year's nursing resolutions

In today's video, I'm going to talk about how to pick some new year's resolutions that you can incorporate into your nursing career and really make your time in nursing school the best it can be.

Topics covered in this video

0.00 Introduction

0.34 - Set goals

1.16 - Get organised

2.29 - See placement as a positive

3.12 - Set goals on placement

0.00 Introduction

Hi, welcome back to nurses.co.uk channel. My name is Claire and I'm a third year adult nursing student at the University of Southampton.

0.34 - Set goals

So the first one is, I would say try and set goals. I know this sounds really generic, but try and make your goals specific, smart. You know the smart goals thing?

So measurable, achievable, realistic, and then have a timeframe on it as well.

Because I find that makes it a lot easier to be able to pick goals and really stick to them.

So one of your goals may be to, I don't know, get an A on placement.

So that could be your goal, but it's like how are you going to achieve that goal?

So then coming up with a plan of how you can achieve that goal and how you can really reach that goal. And reach your potential.

So that's definitely my first one.

1.16 - Get organised

My second one is how to become more organized.

And this is a huge one that I know everyone tries to get on the bandwagon with in January.

And everyone gets new diaries and stuff like that.

But it is a really good idea because being more organized will allow you to get loads more done and this will improve your productivity and in terms of that then will improve your grades.

And how much you enjoy your course and how much you really get out of it.

So I would recommend using Google calendar, which I use.

Which is really easy to plan your day, hour by hour, minute by minute, whatever you want to do.

Put in different colors for different events, all stuff like that.

I would also recommend having a physical diary as well if you're into that.

Or you can get the Google tasks on your phone, which is kind of like a tick off list, which is where you can have more of a checklist, of the things you need to get done.

And this way you can keep on track of your to do lists and make sure that you're getting everything done that you need to get done in your day, which is super important.

2.29 - See placement as a positive

Number three, I would recommend is to do with placement and I know placement is a such a huge part of our career, but I think when it could be looking at our placement in a different light.

So looking at placement as a way of actually getting somewhere towards, more towards your career instead of looking at it as, 'Oh, I'm doing 40 hours a week for free and I'm not really learning anything'.

Looking at as a learning opportunity and hopefully then that will improve your outcome in the end of your nursing career.

But also as you go on, you'll enjoy it more if you're going in every day saying, "What am I getting out of this? How can I improve and what am I doing well? And what are you not doing well?"

3.12 - Set goals on placement

One thing I've done on this placement, is I've set goals for my every day.

So I go in and I say, "Today I want to do airway management and if I manage to do airway that day, I say I held an airway in the jaw terse position or whatever like that.

And then I'll get the nurse that I was working with that day to write a little brief comment about it. And they then also they'll write what I need to improve on.

So it's not all about just getting really good feedback because getting really good feedback means nothing because people saying you're good every day.

It's really nice to hear, but it's not very helpful.

So now I've started getting them to write, okay, that's great if you think I've gotten, I'm doing a good job, but what can I do better?

And they might say, "Oh, when you're holding it, watch your finger position or/and talk to the patient more."

Or don't forget to wear your gloves.

So it might be really simple things like that, but that is so much more beneficial because then in the long run you actually have things that you can change.

And it's not just that you're hearing your great all the time.

It's that actually there is things that are manageable and that you can change.

So thank you so much for listening to this video, and if you enjoyed it, please give it a like and subscribe to the Nurses.co.uk channel.

Thank you. Bye.

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