Your Highest Self

What differentiates humans from animals is our ability to think. Animals are programmed perfectly. Their instincts guide them to food and steers them away from danger. As humans, we are unfortunately not programmed so perfectly. Our mind takes over and we think ourselves out of things that we should be doing for our highest good.

So, as humans, we are either growing or we are stagnant. How are you growing yourself? Are you investing in classes? If you are investing in classes teaching nursing skills, is that the best use of your time?

I think that learning about your self is the most fascinating subject any human being can undertake. I am continually going to work shops and programs to learn more about myself and improve myself so I can be the highest version of myself.

Another way to grow yourself is to become involved in organizations. Are you a member of the American Nurses Association? How about your specialty nursing associations? Do you go to meetings?

When you go to meetings, it’s not necessarily about the lectures you get to attend but about the people you get to meet.

I would love to see nursing become much more collaborative than it is now. I also would love for nurses to have a forum available that, if they are an ICU nurse in one part of the county, they could reach out to ICU nurses all over and say, “Hey, we got this problem where I work, what do you guys do about it?”

And you can receive solutions from people all over the country sharing what they do and what works where they are. By sharing best practices with each other, we can transform health care to improve ourselves and the quality of our patient care. Because I believe nurses have all the solutions to the problems in healthcare but many times we are not asked for our opinion.

What are you doing to grow yourself today?