When I graduated from nursing school, I thought the hardest part of the journey would be the exams. I spent so many nights hunched over textbooks, highlighter in hand, testing myself on lab values and care plans until the numbers blurred together. Back then, I thought once I stepped into the hospital as a real nurse, everything would click into place. I imagined myself moving smoothly from room to room, knowing exactly what to say and what to do, the way the experienced nurses seemed to glide down the hall with purpose in every step. Instead, my first months on the job felt like learning to walk all over again, with shaky legs and a heart that never quite slowed down.
My shifts often started before the sun came up. I would drive to the hospital in the dim light, holding my coffee cup like a small anchor. Walking through the sliding doors, I could feel the energy of the building wrap around me. Machines beeped in the distance. Carts rolled across the floors. Voices blended at the nurses’ station as night shift passed the stories of their hours to day shift. My name badge felt heavier than it looked, as if it carried every responsibility I was still learning to shoulder. I smiled, said good morning, and tried not to let the swirl of activity show on my face.
Those early weeks, I went home feeling like I had missed something important every single day. I would replay moments from my shift over and over while brushing my teeth, wondering if I should have worded something differently or noticed a change in a patient sooner. I asked a lot of questions, sometimes too many, and I worried my coworkers would think I was in the way. The experienced nurses were kind, but I still felt like I was walking into a movie that had already started, trying to figure out the plot from the middle.
One of the charge nurses suggested I start writing down a few notes after each shift, not about every detail, just about the moments that stood out. At first, I resisted. The last thing I wanted to do after twelve hours on my feet was sit down and write about it. But one evening, after a particularly hard day, I opened a notebook, sat at my small kitchen table, and wrote one sentence: “Today I did not cry until I got to my car.” It made me laugh a little to see the words staring back at me. That small moment of humor opened the door to more words, and soon I was scribbling about the patient who smiled when I adjusted her pillow, the coworker who answered my rushed call light without a second thought, and the way I finally remembered the right dosage without checking my notes three times.
Over time, these after-shift notes grew longer. They were not neat or organized. Some were half-finished sentences where I ran out of energy mid-thought. Others were long rambles about one single interaction that stayed with me. I noticed that writing things down helped me see the day differently. Instead of remembering only the stress and the mistakes I thought I made, I started to notice the small wins that slipped by in the rush of it all. The time I advocated for a patient who seemed uncomfortable but didn’t want to speak up. The moment I caught a small change in vital signs and called for help faster than I would have the week before. The instance when a family member thanked me for explaining something in simple words when they were overwhelmed and scared.
I didn’t show these notes to anyone at first. They felt messy and vulnerable, like a window into a part of me that was still forming. But one day, when I was searching online for something that might help me keep growing without feeling so hard on myself, I came across a page where artists talked about how they share their work and listen to thoughtful reactions. It wasn’t about medicine at all, but it reminded me of what I needed to hear in my own world: that growth doesn’t come from harsh judgment, it comes from honest, gentle feedback and from being willing to keep trying even when you feel clumsy.
I bookmarked that page and later linked to it in one of my written reflections, almost like leaving a breadcrumb for my future self. On nights when I felt like I had fallen short, I would read what I had written the week before and follow that link again. I would remind myself that learning is allowed to be imperfect and that feedback, in any field, can be kind without losing its strength. It made me think of the more experienced nurses who leaned over my shoulder at the computer and quietly talked me through a new order, or who stood beside me in a patient room and explained their thought process while I listened as carefully as I could.
One of the biggest changes for me happened on a day that, from the outside, looked completely ordinary. I had a full team of patients, and nothing dramatic took place. There were no codes, no sudden emergencies that stopped everyone in their tracks. Instead, the whole day was made up of small, steady tasks. I helped a man sit up in bed for the first time after surgery and watched relief wash over his face. I took extra time to sit with a woman who was afraid of being discharged because she lived alone and didn’t know how she would manage. I caught myself explaining a medication side effect in simple language, and I saw the patient relax when they finally understood what to expect.
At the end of that shift, I went home and wrote for longer than I ever had. I did not write about feeling like a failure. I did not write about being lost. I wrote about how my body felt tired but my heart felt a little stronger. I described the way the hallway lights reflected on the polished floors, the way my shoes squeaked near the supply room, and the way a coworker squeezed my shoulder after I helped her with a difficult task. I wrote about how I realized I had moved through the day without needing to ask as many questions as before, not because I suddenly knew everything, but because I trusted the knowledge I had slowly gathered.
Around this time, I started sharing small parts of my reflections with a close coworker. We would sit in the break room, leaning back in the plastic chairs, eating whatever we had thrown into our lunch bags that morning, and trade stories about our shifts. She would tell me about the first year she worked as a nurse and how she thought about quitting at least every other week. It surprised me, because now she moves like a calm center in the middle of chaos. Hearing about her early doubts helped me feel less alone in mine. Some days, I would read her a few sentences from my notebook, and she would nod and offer her own gentle thoughts, reminding me of ways I had handled things well even when I focused on the parts I wanted to fix.
One afternoon, after a long stretch of shifts, I got pulled into a room with a patient who was having trouble breathing. Time seemed to move strangely during those minutes. The room filled with staff. Orders came quickly. My hands shook as I reached for supplies, but training and muscle memory stepped in. I checked the monitor, adjusted the bed, called for help when I needed it, and followed instructions as clearly as I could. When everything settled and the room grew calmer, one of the senior nurses looked at me and said, “You did well. You stayed present.” The words were simple, but they landed deep.
That night, I wrote about every detail I could remember. The fear. The rush. The way my voice sounded steadier than I felt when I spoke to the patient. Most importantly, I wrote about that comment from the senior nurse. In that reflection, I included the same link I had saved before, the one that reminded me how helpful thoughtful feedback can be when you are still learning. I saw the pattern clearly for the first time: I was no longer only replaying the things I thought I had done wrong. I was also gathering the moments where someone offered me a kind truth about what I had done right, even if it was small.
Little by little, these written moments started to shape how I saw myself. I stopped describing myself as “just a new nurse” in my own head. Instead, I started thinking of myself as a nurse who was still learning, but who also brought something real to the team. I noticed the way I greeted patients, the way I bent down to speak at eye level with someone sitting on the edge of the bed, the way I always tried to remember a small personal detail to bring up later so they knew I had been listening. None of those things show up on a chart, but they matter.
There were still days that left me drained, of course. There were shifts where I sat in my car afterward and rested my forehead on the steering wheel, taking slow breaths before I felt ready to drive home. There were times when I made mistakes, owned them, and learned from them. I wrote about those, too, not to punish myself, but to remember what I wanted to handle differently next time. It helped to know that learning and stumbling could exist side by side, that growth was not a neat, straight line.
One evening, I was standing at the nurses’ station finishing a chart when a family member walked up to me. She had tears in her eyes, but her voice was steady. She said she wanted to thank me for talking to her father the way I did. “You didn’t rush him,” she said. “You let him finish his thoughts.” I could feel my own eyes sting a little as I nodded and thanked her. It was such a small piece of feedback, but it echoed in my head all week. I wrote it down that night, word for word, because I didn’t want to forget how much it mattered that someone noticed.
When I look back now on these first months as a nurse, I don’t only see the fear and the long hours. I see the collection of small, steady steps I took, even on days when it felt like I was standing still. I see the people who offered me gentle honesty when I needed guidance. I see the patients who trusted me with their stories and their fears. And I see the way simple writing and thoughtful reactions, whether in person or through a page I stumbled upon online, helped me keep moving forward instead of shutting down.
If someone new to this work ever sat across from me and asked how to keep going when everything feels overwhelming, I don’t think I would hand them a list of rules or a long lecture. I would probably tell them about my own notebook, the one with smudged ink and dog-eared pages, and how it held both my hardest days and my proudest moments. I would tell them how helpful it has been to let others speak into my experience with kindness instead of hiding my struggles. I would tell them that progress often looks like remembering one more thing today than you did yesterday, or finding your voice in a situation where you once stayed silent.
I would also share the simple truth that helped me most: you are allowed to be learning and still be helpful. You are allowed to ask for guidance and still be strong. You are allowed to look for tools and places that remind you to see your own growth more clearly. One of those tools, for me, was returning again and again to this page about how kind, thoughtful feedback can support creative work, even though it isn’t about nursing at all. It reminded me that feedback in any part of life can be gentle and still help you change for the better.
I am still a first-year nurse. I still have a lot to learn. Some days, I still feel my heart race when I hear a monitor alarm or a new order comes through. But I no longer see myself only through the lens of my mistakes or my fears. I see myself through the small moments I’ve chosen to notice and the reflections I’ve written at the end of each shift. I see myself through the eyes of the people who have been patient enough to guide me, and through the quiet gratitude of families and patients who let me be part of their story, even for a short time.
Maybe that is what these months have really taught me: that growth is not loud or flashy most of the time. It is found in slow mornings at the nurses’ station, in shared breaks with coworkers, in handwritten notes made with heavy eyelids and sore feet. It is found in the way you decide, again and again, to show up, to listen, to keep learning. And it is found in the courage to see your own small wins, even on the days when they seem almost too small to notice.
I don’t know exactly who I will be as a nurse five years from now, but I know this: I will keep writing after my shifts. I will keep letting kind feedback shape me instead of letting fear shut me down. And I will keep looking for those small moments of progress that tell me I am moving forward, even when all I feel is tired. Because those moments, collected over time, are how we become the people we hoped we might be when we first stepped through the hospital doors with trembling hands and a name badge that felt just a bit too heavy.