Recently I started working at a hospital as a float pool nursing assistant. The float is a group of staff members that get put on to any unit that is short staffed. One day I could be on the cardiac floor, and the next day I could be working in the ER. When I first started my training for this job, I was assigned to isolation units which was stressful for many reasons. There were so many protocols to remember and policies that every staff member had to implement when caring for patients. To know that I could forget something and mess up horribly caused so much anxiety within me especially with the responsibility of a patient in my hands. After a few days of working in the isolation unit, I was assigned to the neurology unit and I couldn’t believe how easy my work that day was. More than half of the techniques and precautions I had to remember in the isolation unit was not needed on the neurology floor, I was almost bored. I realized that if I had started off in neurology I probably would have thought it was difficult, but because I had been training in a much more demanding floor it seemed like a piece of cake in comparison. It really was all about my perspective and where I was coming from.
Having grit is important, especially if you want to be successful. It’s the idea of pushing forward despite setbacks and shortcomings, its the urge to keep moving forward even if it’s through clenched teeth. Realizing that everything is relative to something else helped me put things into perspective. Certain things are not that big of a deal compared to the bigger picture. While working on that isolation unit made me feel incompetent as a nursing assistant and even made me question my abilities in the healthcare field, this “shortcoming” was nothing in comparison to the less strenuous units I worked at after. It made me realize how being exposed to one of the most difficult units in the hospital set me up for success in every unit after. If I decided to quit my job because of how hard it was, I wouldn’t have waited long enough to see that I could handle the other units because of my exposure to the more difficult one. This is why it’s important to have grit, if not for future success, for the idea that these difficulties that discourage us don’t serve any other purpose but to make us more equipped to get closer to where we want to go. The difficulties I encounter at work now will make me a better CNA a month from now, and give me experience to move forward in my future career.
Your experiences can change you and help you deal with things better. Thats why it’s important to have grit, because any feeling of calamity is really not the hard truth or the end all be all. In light of the millions of other experiences you will face in your lifetime, these moments of hardship will become just another step on the ladder.