Here’s something nobody in nursing leadership says out loud: sometimes you’re the one choosing the change and you’re still terrified.
I’ve spent most of my career in long-term care — same world, different buildings, climbing the same ladder. So when I made the decision to move into consulting, I won’t pretend I had it figured out. I had a lot of “what if this is a massive mistake” energy and a calendar that suddenly felt very open and very alarming.
Change in nursing usually happens to you. New admin, new policy, a new EMR that makes everyone’s life worse for six months. You adapt because you have to. But choosing change — initiating it — is a different kind of scary.
Here’s what I’ve figured out about fear: it doesn’t mean stop. It mostly just means this matters. The things that have never scared me are also the things I don’t care that much about losing. Fear shows up when the stakes are real.
So if you’re standing at the edge of something — a new role, a different direction, a decision that’s making your stomach hurt — that’s probably a sign you’re pointed at something worth doing.
It doesn’t mean it won’t be hard. It will be. But hard and wrong aren’t the same thing. You’ll figure it out. And if you don’t figure it out immediately, you’ll figure out how to survive not figuring it out. Nurse leaders are very good at that.