Encourage yourself

It’s human nature to desire those in your circle of friends, family and associates to celebrate your achievements. When you are proud of yourself, you expect others to be proud of you; when you ask others for their support, you expect that support.

What I’m learning as a budding nurse leader is that not everyone is as proud and supportive of you as you may like him or her to be. A small part of me—probably the young, naive part—still believes that everyone should celebrate everyone else’s accomplishments, but life has shown me this is not always the case. We can’t always expect the same celebratory reaction from others that we have for ourselves. As nurse leaders, we need to remember it is sometimes lonely at the top.

Not everyone desires to take on leadership roles, nor do they understand the mindset of those who step into those roles. Not everyone appreciates the time and effort it takes to be on a national committee, or to produce a successful webinar, or to write and publish an article in a nursing journal. The beauty of the world comes through its diversity. If we all desired to do the same things, the lack of variety might bore us to death. Still, it doesn’t feel good when you accomplish something that was, at one time, only a dream, and the people with whom you share this information are less than congratulatory. We typically expect the people we surround ourselves with to be excited for us, so when that does not happen, our feelings are hurt. But when we put things into perspective, we begin to realize the things that are important to us are not always important to those around us. For this reason, we must learn to celebrate ourselves!

India.Arie sings a song I absolutely love. It’s about the artist’s difficulty in finding someone with whom she can celebrate her birthday. She sings, “I’m having a private party. I’m learning how to love me, celebrating the woman I’ve become.” When I first heard this song, years ago, I was reminded not to depend on the accolades of others to feel good about my accomplishments. It’s OK to celebrate yourself, whether by choice or default. There is another song I love that speaks of encouraging one’s self. This song, written by Donald Lawrence, says, “Sometimes, you have to encourage yourself. … Sometimes, you have to pat your own self on the back.” I love this!!!

Whether you are a current or future nurse leader, make the decision to celebrate yourself and pat yourself on the back. Don’t wait for others to congratulate you. Congratulate yourself! Sometimes, people don’t understand all you had to do to get where you are and, quite honestly, some people just don’t care. So don’t expect everyone to be as excited about your latest, greatest accomplishments as you may be. And, just in case you never hear it from anyone else, CONGRATULATIONS from me to you!

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.