Mitochondria are the energy-producing powerhouses within each cell of our bodies, synthesizing ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for us around the clock.
In terms of your nursing career, what are the mitochondria that power your engine? What impetus, desires, goals, or motivations drive you forward? If you need to stoke the fire of your nursing career, the spark isn’t created in a vacuum.
A nursing career needs a great deal of feeding and watering; there are so many moving parts, and there’s a lot to do to keep them all happy and flourishing. In your career, you will need personal and professional fulfillment, career-related accomplishment, purpose, and a sense of belonging; these are the building blocks of the fire in your nursing belly. If this is the case, what are the mitochondrial inhabitants of your career that consistently provide the spark of energy to keep going?
Career Mitochondria: The Driving Force
Some of your nursing career mitochondria may originate from where you first decided to become a nurse. For example, you may have been inspired by a family member (I had three nurses on my father’s side of the family) or perhaps by a friend who was a nurse.
I can’t tell you, dear Reader, how many nurses have told me over the years that they were thunderstruck by the compassionate nursing care they witnessed for a loved one, which was the impetus for pursuing this career path.
If you no longer resonate with your nursing career or feel as if you’ve lost your nurse mojo, this may necessitate revisiting the original driving force behind your becoming a nurse in the first place. Likewise, if your original motivations for entering the profession no longer hold for you in the present, some soul-searching may reveal where you need to look next for inspiration.
That soul-searching may reveal that you’re ready to leave nursing and pursue something new, and that’s perfectly fine if it’s your reality. However, if you have moved into another career stage and need to find new fuel for your nursing engine, that can be done.
Dig Deeper
Let’s say you went into nursing because you had the goal of helping people; those were your emotional marching orders for applying to nursing school and going through the necessary steps to get your license and begin practicing. There were no grand plans or lofty ideals but a deep-seated desire to be of service.
Twenty-five years into your career, you’re older and more mature, and perhaps your desire to serve others no longer feels like enough. You’ve sat with the dying, tended to the ill, comforted the bereft, and accomplished everything you ever wanted to in your satisfying career. You still like being a kind and compassionate nurse, but you find that the fire has gone out and your mitochondria are no longer making the ATP you need to move forward with positive energy and enthusiasm.
Perhaps you were 26 when you began, and now at 51, your life and what you want from it have changed. Perhaps your children are grown and out of the house, and your parents have passed away. Maybe you’ve gotten divorced or feel like a different person from when you first held that stethoscope.
Well, at this point, you need to dig deeper to find where your nursing career mitochondria will come from now. What are the factors that will create a new source of energy and career ATP? From where do your motivation and satisfaction spring now? This may need to be a soul-searching process; it need not be painful, but some introspection, deep thought, and radical honesty may be what’s called for to get you there.
Nurse Keith’s Journey
I’m in my late fifties at the time of this writing. After more than 25 years as a clinically- oriented nurse in home care, hospice, public health, and ambulatory case management, I chose in 2016 to no longer hold a clinical position for the foreseeable future, except for occasional per diem work. Although I love working with patients and families, I realized that the impact I wanted to have in the world went far beyond what I could accomplish in the one-to-one intimacy of the nurse-patient or nurse-family relationship. I needed something broader, which I’ve spent the last ten years building.
My ongoing mission is to reach nursing professionals through writing, podcasting, and creating media platforms that inspire, educate, and motivate nurses. I want nurses to feel supported as professionals, and I love speaking directly to them about their struggles and pain and how to overcome or subvert them. This is my current joy; this brings me my nursing mojo, the fuel of my career.
While I no longer care for patients often, my work helping nurses find more meaning and satisfaction in their careers impacts many more patients than I could ever touch myself. My hope and vision are that nurses who have had a positive experience interacting with me or my words will go out there and be even more inspired to do and be their best. Patients feel it when we nurses are inspired and present; if I can play even a tiny part in one nurse achieving that, I’m satisfied, and my work is worthwhile.
My career mitochondria are different now, but the satisfaction and joy are the same; I’ve found a new means to a similar end.
It’s Your Turn: What’s Your Career Mitochondria?
So, nurses, now it’s your turn to dig deep. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are my original motivations for becoming a nurse still equally powerful for me now?
- In terms of my nursing mojo, is it still there? Have I lost my mojo, or is it just a little blunted?
- When I first became a nurse, my greatest satisfaction came from _____________. At this point in my career, my greatest satisfaction comes from __________________.
- If I need something new to reinvigorate my career mitochondria, will this new thing still have something to do with nursing?
- If I realize that my new career mitochondria can most readily be found outside of nursing, am I willing to reconcile myself with that fact and pursue that path?
- On a scale of 1-10 (since nurses love 1-10 scales), my career satisfaction is currently a ____.
- Based on my current level of satisfaction, am I willing to do whatever it takes to get that number up to an 8 or 9, even if it means taking radical and courageous action?
These may not be easy questions for you to answer, but they’re crucial. They also need to be pondered seriously and frequently throughout your nursing career. Your satisfaction is not a static entity but a moving target on a continually transformational continuum. Therefore, ongoing self-examination is one key to career fulfillment over time.
Again, your career mitochondria will not always magically appear when you need to refresh them; you have to feed them, water them, and provide an environment where they can thrive and multiply with abandon.
Find your nursing mojo; stoke the fires from which your career mitochondria are born. Those happy and well-fed mitochondria will pump out your career ATP in enormous bursts of energy. Create a career that isn’t based on complacency or low-level burnout but on reveling in the joy of work that puts food on your table while feeding your soul and satisfying your heart of hearts.
Daily Nurse is thrilled to welcome Keith Carlson, “Nurse Keith,” a well-known nurse career coach and podcaster of The Nurse Keith Show as a guest columnist. Check back every other Thursday for Keith’s column.
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