 Hi everyone and welcome back to another vlog. My name is Claire Carmichael, I'm a general practice nurse in the middle of a COVID pandemic. This video is hopefully going to navigate away from that slightly and I want to talk all about how to stay confident in your newly qualified nurse post and if you are a third year student right now that has taken up the step, opted in. If you are that person and you're thinking about okay, how can I stay confident in this job? How can I make the best of this situation? Or you might just be a newly qualified nurse, just qualified and you want to know how to make the best of this new job that you're going into, how to stay confident because it can be quite challenging at times. I've had that as a newly qualified nurse and it's really important that we stay confident, we stay competent as well in this role. So this video is absolutely for you if this is what you want to know. My first tip is actually going to talk about your own sort of mental health and encouraging that every single morning before you step on shift. So whether that's as soon as you get up, whether you're in the bathroom, getting washed and dressed, whatever you're doing, you just want to stand tall, do the superwoman pose, power pose, whatever sort of pose, arms in the air, however you want to stand, get that power pose ready and just say to yourself, do you know what, I'm great, I can do this, I'm confident, I'm a nurse, look how far I've come, I'm brilliant, tell yourself these positive things daily. This is what I do, I have to remind myself every day, do you know what, I am a good nurse, I can do this, come on. And just that little bit of mental exercise every single day is going to reinforce your own confidence every single day and it's just amazing how that change of mindset can really make a big, big difference. Because if you think about it, if you're waking up and like, oh my God, I've got a date work, I don't know if I can do this, you're already setting your date up for a fail, why are you doing that? The day hasn't even started, start it positive, start it on a high and whatever comes your way, tackle it bit by bit, that's the best way you can start, honest to God. And not only that, do whatever you, whatever makes you feel confident, if you feel confident when you've washed your hair, your hair's looking shiny, it's looking good, you feel good. If you're just, you know, when I put my wings on every day and I'm just like, yeah, that looks so much better, I feel good in myself already. A little square of perfume, not too much because patients might be sick. But these little things like might really, really help you, your own mental health and your own way of thinking and feeling confident. Whatever you do every day to make you feel good about yourself, do that, do absolutely more of that. Unless it's nail extensions and fake lashes and yeah, God knows what then you probably won't be able to do that in nursing, sorry guys. So my second tip is, if you don't know something, if a patient is asking you something or a colleague is asking you something you don't know, it's perfectly okay to say, do you know what, I'm really sorry, I don't know, but I'm gonna go find out for you. And you will be surprised at how understanding some patients are. Like as soon as you say, I'm really sorry, I don't know this, but you know what, someone else does and I'm gonna find out, they actually really appreciate your honesty and that's gonna make them trust you as well because you're being open and honest. If that keeps happening as well, you're gonna actually feel a bit better about things, you're gonna feel a little bit more confident because you're thinking okay, it's okay to say no, whereas sometimes like it happened to me when I very first started working, a patient asked me something simple and I didn't know and I beat myself up for days over it and it really knocked my confidence. But actually over time I realized it was okay, I need to be kind to themself and all that jazz and actually now I'm okay with it. So I'm not going into work thinking, oh my God, please don't ask me something, don't ask me anything because I don't know. You need to erase all about your mental confidence as well as your physical and knowledgeable and all of this, you know, you need to build that up as well and that's what this is all about again. So it's about knowing that it's okay to be open and honest with patients, it's okay not to know everything. It's I keep saying this, we can't physically know it at all, nobody knows it all and that's okay and you have to be comfortable with that so that you are comfortable every day at work. Tip number three is gonna be speak to your colleagues because I found this really, really useful when I was beating myself up at the start, I wasn't feeling very confident in myself, I was really, really punishing myself and it really, really helped to speak to other nurses that I worked with that have been there for years, been nursing for years and to see that actually they don't know it all and that they feel confident sometimes and that just really, really helped and it made me think actually okay, this is normal to feel like this and it's normal to have these wobbles and it's okay. So it was really, really nice to get that support as well. So please, please, please make sure you get the support if you need it and speak to the colleagues around you and other people and newly qualified nurses as well. That really, really helps as well. It's really important that you get the support and know that you're not alone in this. So my tip number four is all about keeping on top of policies, procedures, guidelines, public health England, World Health Organization, all that jazz, keep on top of the current guidelines and this is going to really, really help you because if someone like a patient or something questions something and you say, well, actually, this is the current policy. This is the guidelines and we have to go by that. As long as you can rationalize things and justify things, then you're well in your right and as long as you can provide evidence as well to patients because sometimes they like the evidence behind things and the research, then you're going to be well away and if you've got that stored in the back of your memory or if you've got a book with it, so you can refer back to it, it's going to really, really help you out at the time and it's going to give you that little boost of confidence because you're like, actually, I know this. It's going to be really, really helpful for you to know that. But not only that, make sure you're revising as well. Like I'm still revising anything I don't know. I'm looking it up. I'm Googling it. I'm going on obviously official websites and things like that. I'm watching YouTube videos to refresh my memory about anatomy and physiology because if you don't keep on top of it, you do sort of slip and forget about these little things. So it's really important that you do that. And that's just going to give you that extra bit of confidence as well because when someone questions you or asks you something, you're going to be like, actually, I do know this. I looked at this yesterday. So yeah, obviously, don't tell them that. Just look confident. But yeah, it's going to really, really help with your confidence as well because you'll actually know the information and that does make us feel better when you get it right and you know something, it does give you that boost and it does make you feel confident. So that's a massive bonus, I think. Tip number five has to be always attend your mandatory training. That's an obvious one, isn't it? But yeah, make sure that you have been trained as well. So have a ask your managers and whoever your mentor is, if you've got a mentor at the minute, go to your go to person and just see if there's any sort of mandatory training that you should be doing like life support, infection control, information governance, all of that sort of things, health and safety. But keeping up to date with your mandatory training is really, really going to help your competence too, as well as e-learning. So I've been doing a lot of e-learning, which is on e-learning for health care. Have a Google, you'll find it really, really easy. But there's tons, tons, tons, tons of e-learning on there. And there's so much information and websites and it's really regularly updated as well. So it's got all the relevant policies and procedures. It's absolutely amazing. And it's really, really a boost in your competence as well. When you're going to these training and you're getting something right and you think, yes, I can do this again. It's all about just knowing that you can do it, but also being a little bit savvy as well and doing your training and doing your own learning. Everyone says nursing is lifelong learning and nursing really is lifelong learning. We're going to be learning until the day we are no longer a nurse or able to nurse. And finally, on my last little tip, an extra bonus one, which is probably another obvious one. I don't know if it is or not to some people, but to me it is obvious. I don't know. But keeping well hydrated and nourished, like make sure you're eating the right things, make sure you're having enough fluids out there. It can be really, really easy to forget to drink. We're constantly telling our patients, you know, eat healthy, drink healthy, all of that, plenty of fluids. But we forget to do it ourselves. And it's really, really important because if you're dehydrated, it's going to cause a whole load of problems in your body. And memory and the things like that is one of them. So you want to make sure you're well hydrated, eating the right food, lots of fruit and veg as well, to give you a bit of mental stimulation. And that's going to really, really help you, I think, as well. So that's it on that note. I'm going to say goodbye. Stop boring you all. But I just, my last little piece of advice is just find what's good for you and what was what works for you. I say this all the time. We're all completely separate people. We're all individual. And whatever works for me might not work for you. So it's about finding your own balance, your own routine and just getting into the swing of things in your own little ways. And just yeah, whatever makes you feel confident, go and do that. See you later.