Maybe I'm stupid, but how do you make a big life decision?

[AppleGirl]

I am trying to make a "big life decision" but am unsure how to go about it. I just sit on the problem and do nothing at all.

 

The problem is, that I am deeply unhappy with my job. I am an RN who works in Oncology. I feel like my job is slowly sucking the life out of me. I don't sleep anymore and suffer from insomnia. I have become a hypochondriac who sees "cancer" in every single physical symptom. I go home at night and cry over the horribly sad stories of my patients and their fate.

 

It's just awful.

 

I want to leave my job, but I am afraid. As unhappy as I am there, I am afraid and the fear keeps me from doing anything about it.

 

I have never been anything other than a "Nurse". As an adult, I have performed no other job. I feel like nursing is part of my identity. I am a good nurse too. I love my patients and I am good to them. And I love my coworkers. We are like a family. They are a good bunch of girls.

 

Oncology nursing requires a certain personality type and I know if I transferred to another floor, that I would not get the wonderful coworkers that have now. I have floated throughout the hospital, on occasion, and found this to be true.

 

So, the problem is....what do I do? Should I leave my job? Should I stay? Should I just suck it up and take a different position in the hospital?

 

I have even entertained going back to school and doing something completely unrelated to my field. In only four years, I could be doing something completely different and would be away from nursing for good.

 

I am so confused. I just don't know what to do.

 

Can someone help me?

[Ronni_W]

Hey AppleGirl.

I read something about this recently, and I wish I could remember where so I could just quote it. But I'll try to put it in my own words. Basically:

 

There are NO guarantees in life about how anything is going to work out -- primary relationship, kids, career, health, financial investments...no guarantees about any of it.

So we're called upon to make the best-informed decisions we can, based on our current-day information, intuition, feelings, needs, goals, etc.

 

Our decision is necessarily also going to include our current-day limitations, blind spots and things we do not know, and there will always be a 'road not taken'.

 

When you make a decision, also make a commitment to making it work -- be willing to put your 100% effort behind your decision and be prepared for the inevitable challenges (don't see problems as your "hard evidence" that you made a wrong/mistaken decision.)

 

You make your decision and your commitment to it, and you put in your good faith effort.

And then you also pray and Trust that everything will work out exactly the way you envisioned it would.

 

---

 

Specific to your situation, you say you're afraid of leaving your job. Are you more afraid of leaving than of having life itself "sucked out of" you?

 

Maybe you could start with getting clear on your current-day values, what you want to accomplish in the next, say, 5 years. What you want for yourself, how you want to feel about what you'll be doing and thinking.

 

What do you value more, current-day? Having a job / staying in your comfort zone...or feeling fulfilled, rewarded, inspired and 'alive' in whatever job you're doing?

 

Maybe some self-reflection along those lines might help you?

 

There's also a technique called "6 hats brainstorming" -- you could Google it, and may have to adapt it a bit.

 

Finally, in my personal experience, the decisions I've made (and not made) out of fear have not proven to be the best ones for me. Sometimes we just gotta take a 'leap of faith'...AFTER we've done our best to inform ourselves of the pros and cons

 

Best of luck.

[norajane]

Research. Research. Research.

 

And then you weight the pros and cons of each option, and see what sways you.

 

And sometimes, you flip a coin.

 

Everyone does it differently. Some follow a gut instinct, and some give it careful thought, and some talk to career counselors and do a lot of research, and some talk to their families, and some do all of the above.

 

How would you choose a new car? It may sound like a silly comparison, but your approach to selecting a new car will give you some insight into your decision making process in general. Do you follow your heart and have it set one particular car and that's it? Or do you do a lot of research on gas mileage and car crash ratings and repair histories, etc.?

 

My approach to big decisions is usually to start considering options with the least amount of disruption to my life and then work outwards to the greatest. The answer is usually somewhere in the middle, although if I have my heart set on it, I may act impulsively anyway and damn the consequences.

 

In your case, I'd probably spend a lot, and I mean a lot, of time talking to nurses in other fields, other types of practices, and career counselors. Because this is what you've trained to do, changing fields to one that is less emotionally demanding is probably the least amount of disruption to your life, but can give you the change you are looking for.

 

You say you've rotated through other floors at the hospital. That's not enough! Floating through makes you an outsider, and you don't have a chance to become part of the 'family' or really understand the group dynamics. You're seeing it from the outside and dismissing it because of your fears, and your fears aren't allowing you to see the positives.

 

You also don't even have to work at a hospital. There's private practice, for example. Or physical therapy.

 

I would spend a lot of time looking at options that take advantage of all the experience and hard work you've put in so far.

 

Then, I'd step outward. Are there other jobs you have in mind which have some of the same elements but don't require patient care? Maybe you want to get into nursing management? What would that entail? A job at a nursing school where you would teach? What would you need to do for that? What kind of hit in salary could you afford and for how long? How does that impact your benefits and retirement plan?

 

And then step further out. What would you go back to school for? Go and talk to career counselors at your nursing school and find out what alumni end up doing later in life if they leave the profession. If you've narrowed that down already, go and talk to people in that field and find out what the job really entails. Your university will likely have a career placement center with alumni on file who are willing to talk to people about their jobs.

 

How much would school cost? Can you afford it and not work for 4 years?

 

Basically, I'm saying you need more information and you need to see where your heart is before making a decision. If every nursing option fills you with dread, then there's your answer - you need to do something else. But don't make life-changing decisions without thoroughly reviewing your options and considering how much you really know about what you're changing to.

[Els]

I think you should give another department a chance - floating is not the same as working there.

 

However - I honestly think that if the fate of your patients trouble you so greatly that it impacts your health, you should consider another field altogether. It is the brunt that the entire medical profession bears - not everyone is cut out for it. While other departments may not be as trying as onco, death and suffering occurs everywhere in the hospital. You might try for something simple like ENT or skin where patients seldom die and are often cured (they have nurse specialties in those too, right?), but it may not be as fulfilling, which might negate the purpose altogether.

[Angel1111]

I can totally relate to how this type of job would effect a person in a negative way. I could never do something like this because, if nothing else, it would depress me like crazy. As you say, it takes a special personality for this.

 

If you like nursing, then transfer to somewhere else in the hospital, or to another hospital. If you really don't like nursing and going back to college is an option, then think about what else you would like to do and pursue that. But if you like nursing, I would stick with it because it gives you way more flexibility than most jobs.