44// Why Every RN and APRN Should Start Their Day with Gratitude

In this episode, we explore how gratitude can be a powerful tool to shift your mindset, enhance resilience, and bring joy to your nursing career—even in the face of challenges. As we enter the holiday season, it's important to reflect on what we’re thankful for and practice gratitude daily. Drawing inspiration from renowned thought leaders like Mel Robbins and Gretchen Rubin, we’ll unpack the science of gratitude and how it rewires the brain to combat stress, improve mood, and reduce burnout.

Join me as I share practical strategies for incorporating gratitude into your workday, the connection between gratitude and resilience, and how these practices can help manage compassion fatigue and reignite your passion for nursing. Whether you’re at the bedside, in leadership, or navigating the “hospital grind,” this episode will equip you with tools to balance the good and the hard, stay grounded, and build a career filled with purpose and joy.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

1. The Science of Gratitude:
   • How gratitude activates the brain's reward system to release dopamine and serotonin.
   • Why practicing gratitude can reduce stress and improve your mood.
2. Practical Gratitude Tips for Nurses:
   • Easy ways to incorporate gratitude into your day, such as journaling before a shift or leading team huddles with gratitude reflections.
   • Examples of how gratitude can help you set a positive tone for your day and navigate workplace challenges.
3. Gratitude and Resilience:
   • How gratitude helps nurses bounce back from setbacks and enhances emotional resilience.
   • The role of gratitude in overcoming compassion fatigue and burnout.
4. Inspiration from Thought Leaders:
   • Insights from Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory and Gretchen Rubin’s The Four Tendencies.
   • How these frameworks can help you focus on what matters and create balance in your career.
5. Faith and Gratitude:
   • A reflection on how faith supports a mindset of abundance and resilience, reminding us that “we have enough and we are enough.”

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
• Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins

Actionable Steps for Nurses:

1. Start each day by writing down three things you’re grateful for before your shift.
2. Lead your team with gratitude moments during huddles or meetings.
3. Reflect on your career and identify areas of passion that fuel your joy.

Connect with Me:

• Join my email list for resources, tools, and tips to grow your nursing career: The Ambitious Nurse Insider
• Join My Free Community Career Growth For Experienced Nurses.

Tune in to learn how to embrace gratitude, overcome challenges, and reignite your passion for nursing!

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Transcript

Bonnie Meadows: 0:01

One of the pillars of my business and of this podcast. Is two. Make sure that you keep is from me to help lead you and keeping joy in work top of mind. Help you understand that having joy in work is possible, but there are some things that we have to do on our end. To make sure that we accomplish that. There's a mindset that you have to shift into. To find that joy in work, even though you may not think that you have joy in work. Sometimes we don't realize that we're in a good place. But others around us may not feel like they're in a good place. And it's okay to be in a good place, even when others don't feel like they're in a good place. At this point in time, we are entering into the holidays and. It's important for us to. Really understand and reflect on what we're thankful for our gratitude. This is a season of giving nurses give all the time. It's important for us. To really, really grab a hold of. What are, what are we grabbing a hold of and being thankful for and grateful for as we are giving, even during this time, we give all your long as we're giving, even during this time. So look forward to engaging with you in this episode.

1:38

Are you feeling stuck in your current clinical environment? Do you want to make a change in your nursing career but not sure what to do next? Exhausted, burnt out, and maybe even ready for different leadership? I'm Bonnie Meadows, a Board Certified Nurse. Clinical Nurse Specialist, Influential Leader, Career Coach, and Well Being Coach. Being in the nursing and healthcare profession since 2004, I have felt stuck and unsure about what was next for me. I wanted to be fulfilled in my purpose, to have a voice at the table. And to be a resource for others, I kept telling myself I wanted more, but didn't have the direction I needed until I found clarity and career growth strategies for experienced nurses like me. In this podcast, you will find. Simple tactical steps that allow you to gain the clarity you need, solutions for how to grow even without supportive leadership, and guidelines for setting boundaries at work so that you can grow purposefully in your career as a nurse with a graduate degree who makes a huge impact in the profession. So get ready to trade your scrubs for yoga pants. Pop in those earbuds and let's chat.

Bonnie Meadows: 2:54

Nursing is one of the most rewarding professions. But it's also one of the most challenging. Working longer than 12 hour shifts. Especially if you work night shift, sometimes not knowing how you got home. Patient mental and physical complexities, family dynamics. Endless technology notifications and phone calls. And sometimes. Limited resources, finding joy can be impossible and that. Whether you are working at the bedside. Or in a leadership position within the hospital. Leadership, meaning you could be a nurse educator, you could be a nurse practitioner. You could be. ACR and you could be, in nursing informatics, you could be, and, and working in that hospital grind is what I call it. It is sometimes a grind. Sometimes it's a great energy. Sometimes it's a grind and finding joy can sometimes feel very impossible. But today. I want to talk about gratitude. And how we find that gratitude? Even in the little things we do on a day to day basis. So gratitude is not about ignoring the heart stuff because the first thing we think about is, oh, here we go. Sometimes we may feel like our leaders are using this as a manipulative tactic. Depending on who it's coming from, how it's coming across. I know I'm one of those people. I mean, I've been in the game for 20 years, so I'm always reading everyone's people's intention when they say words like resilience and gratitude and. All of these other things. Some are very intentional. About. Making sure we understand that we can look at and say, we're grateful for this, but this thing is hard. Gratitude is not about ignoring the hard stuff, it's about. Shifting our focus to what is good, even in the midst of challenges. There are a few Arthur's podcasters. They're big names that I will mention in this podcast today. They are people who I listened to frequently and they are realistic about the importance of setting boundaries. Much of what they talk about. Helps you find. The joy, the happiness, the peace. That is out there. But we're overlooking on a daily basis. It's a choice. It's a choice that we're taking. And so one I would like to mention is Mel Robbins. I've been listening to her a lot lately. She is phenomenal. Love listening to her. She's got a couple of books out. Her most recent one is the let them theory. I am looking forward to buying that book and then hopefully. Doing a review of the chapters on this particular podcast, because. I have heard from many nurses the whole, they won't let me. It's either they won't let me or this, or that, or whatever the case may be. I think it's important to read through that book and articulate how you can get your power back from, they. Back to Mel Robbins, she says gratitude is not just an emotion. It's a practice that rewires your brain. The goal is not to rewire your brain just so that you don't think about bad things or the hard stuff. But you're holding both. This is the good stuff, and this is the hard stuff. If we only focus on the hard stuff. We end up in a spiral downward and can't bring ourselves back up but if we hold both truths I'm grateful for this, but this thing is. I don't like it. It's hard. Whatever the case may be, or it's not, it's not bringing me peace or. I'm uncomfortable or I'm bored. Those two can be true at the same time. So in this episode, I want to explore the science behind gratitude. I'll share where I am with gratitude and how I am practicing it every day. My rhythm for practicing gratitude. And, try to leave you with some tools and tactics to help bring more gratitude into your life. Even on the worst days on your hardest days. So let's talk about the science of gratitude. Gretchen Rubin. Is one of the, persons that I follow. Let me give you the name of their books just in case you've not heard of them. Gretchen Rubin has, a book called the happiness project. Gretchen Rubin also has some leadership development. Tools, one thing that she has is called. The four tendencies. This book is phenomenal. Itchy even has a quiz that goes with it. That helps you understand who you are in relation to other teammates and people that you lead. The four tendencies that she calls out. These are just phenomenal people. And I think you should look into them. Maybe this is another book we'll do next year, what I'm looking forward to is just bringing out some books. That we can apply to our career development, because it's not just, how do I get my next job? But what skills are you taking from that job? How are you building up those skills, how you recognize in those skills and then how do you work? Together with others. Gretchen Rubin has this book called the four tendencies. And the four tendencies she mentions and I'm hoping I'm not forgetting. It's. The upholder. The questioner. The rebel. And the obliger. It's a quiz and I will try my best. I send the links out to my ambitious nurse insiders, my email newsletter group if you would like, the link to the fortune you could either Google it yourself or get it by way of email. I send out my emails on a weekly basis within the month of December, And so back to the science of gratitude. Gretchen Rubin says that. When we give thanks for everything we have, we can focus on what we have instead of what we don't. So gratitude really activates the brain's reward system. It releases dopamine and serotonin. Which helped to then improve your mood and reduce your stress. So I would say. One way that you can apply this. On how gratitude can impact your brain. If one of the things that it does is to activate your reward system or lucid releasing, improving your mood and reducing your stress. One of the main things that nurses deal with. On a daily basis is going into work and feeling high stress. That's an opportunity for. You either before work. You're starting your day. Before you either walk into work, it's sitting in your car. Or get to work a few minutes early and write the three things that you're grateful for. Being there. 3, 3, 3 things that you're grateful for. That's an opportunity to do it. There's an opportunity for you to lead during huddles. Before you start your shift before you start your day. If you are someone who works on projects and you're working five days a week. It's a time for you to stop. And set your expectations for the day I'm thankful for this. And a team that I like to work with I'm thankful for. The person who smiled at me the other day and I'm thankful for a good laugh. Just small things like that, that you can write. Before you start your shift. To help get you in a mindset of being present and. Helping to reduce your stress. That way you can, combat many of those negative thoughts that you may have going into your shift. Another thing about the science of gratitude. Is the connection to resilience. Studies show that practicing gratitude can enhance resilience. Making it easier to bounce back from setbacks. We have a lot of setbacks during the daytime. Some days we have great days. And then there are some weeks where it's just like, can I get this week over with. We need to know how to build up that resistance, not so much so that we are. Hardcore, but that gratitude helps to make that emotional connection. Bernay brown. Someone else who I love too. Read and talk about. Says, practicing gratitude is how we acknowledge that there's enough. And that we are enough. There is enough. And we are enough. Now sometimes that's not always the reality. But I will say this. If you are a follower of Christ. Then in whatever situation you are in, there is enough. That belief is there. I don't say that as if, oh, well, those who don't are not a follower of Christ, they don't have that. Like, you don't have enough. That's not necessarily true. God loves all of us. And he always wants us to have enough, but we. As followers of Christ, know. We've been given that word. To say. Because of Christ. We have enough. And we are enough. All of a sudden God loves all of us. He's not gonna want anybody left hanging if you don't believe that you are enough, that. That you have enough N. And you're not relying upon your faith to help feed in that extra that you don't feel like you can give yourself. Then it can feel like a downward spiral. There has to be. An element of faith there. Even when we're practicing gratitude. Which helps us to enhance our resilience. There is enough. We have enough now, sometimes again, you don't feel like, oh, we don't have enough resources. We don't have enough. This, we don't have enough debt. What do you have? How can you use what you do have. To make the best out of the situation and let God take care of the rest. And that's how you make that connection. That's one thing that you can do. And again, that practice of gratitude. That's taking a break. Possibly in your day when you're stressed and you're like, I can't do this because this, this, this, and this. Then take a step back and say, what do I have? I actually have a good example for this. Mainly for those home. Are trying to get a name for themselves in a leadership position. Um, Or just trying to. Work to build your skills up. I was in a conversation with. A manager who was very much a micromanager. I was warned about her. And I found out the wrath of her. She was an interim manager and kept asking me. So, what is your role again? What are you supposed to be doing? I was working as a clinical nurse specialist at the time. And so then she tells me, well, the VP says, here's what she wants to do. I said, okay, that's fine. But. As we're having that conversation, I would like for the director to be at the table, because the director was in the conversation. Of hiring me. So I've no one else knows what the intention was for me to do. She should know. So we get in the conversation. We sit down at the table and the conversation is nothing. Of what she said. Does she want it to talk about the conversation was all about. What I am not doing. I was blindsided. Now was I coming out of that conversation like, well, I'm grateful for, and I'm going to pray. I'm thankful for. Here's one thing that I did. And I guess this is a result of just kind of. Being in the career long enough. This was my second rodeo dealing with a micromanager in my, in my 20 years. Micromanager, who was. A bully. Leader bully. Again, I'd been warned about her, that she was a bully. I walked away from that conversation and here's how my resilience kicked in. I was told, I don't want to tell you. I despise. If you want to get rid of me, start micromanaging me. I'm gone. I am gone because I know my skills are way too valuable. For you to be dictating all of the work that I do. I don't mind following directions. I don't mind being a team player. Tell me what you want me to do. And I will walk in that direction. But you can't. Not every. Single step of everything that I do I don't appreciate. So I walked away from that conversation. And I probably did something of an act of connection to resilience. Because then I started thinking about all of the things that she listed, that she wanted me to do. We're really just, okay, well, this is what you want me to do. To say that I'm doing a good job, those things that I'm passionate about, didn't touch. She didn't say, oh, you can't do this anymore. You can't do that anymore. And that's where my mind turned. And that's what practicing gratitude. And really understanding. Who you are, what you desire, what you want out of life. I was thankful, honestly, that she didn't even touch any of that. Because that's where my passion was. All of the things that she has mentioned. In other conversations with me, she didn't even touch and those were my areas of passion. And so I walked away from that conversation. Thankful resilient. And knowing what I could do. Okay. You want to limit me to just these things? Gotcha. Now you best believe I was gone within a month. But that's that connection to resilience. It's really understanding it's bouncing back. Like that was a setback. It was a blow because I was blindsided. But my resilience to that was oh, okay. This is what you want me to do. I'm going to give you exactly what you want. And then we'll go into this other stuff over here, too. So with gratitude. Gratitude helps us as nurses manage compassion, fatigue. And burnout by reminding us of our positive aspects of work. Those things really make a difference. In the way we care for our patients. The energy that we bring into the room of our patients. The patients can tell if you want to be there, if you don't want to be there, unless you are really good at faking it. But that compassion, fatigue and that burnout can really show. So you're not doing any favors to any patients or any family members. When you have that compassion, fatigue, and you have that burnout. And you're not really positive about your work. And so when we say things of gratitude and focus on gratitude. It helps us. To really connect. With patients and families and with our coworkers too. It helps you to acknowledge your limitations. And be okay with them. Those limitations. Help you to choose. What you will and will not do regarding your career. And that's what gratitude does for you. Normally, I try to have a personal story. I just gave you one of how I use gratitude. But as far as a practice, I don't really have a personal story of, oh, I did gratitude for like 20 days. I've been doing good. Writing three things that I'm grateful for, here's how it worked for me. I don't really have a story like that, but I am actively working on this activity. I am one of those people who is generally optimistic it takes a lot for me to spiral. So in general, cup, half full. Now, do I see wrong? I'm always just looking for a different way to influence. That's probably why I'm very optimistic. That I can. Help persuade and influence. You to do the right thing. Not by my own. But. I know that God has given me. The gift. To help persuade. And influence. One nurse called it. You got a lot of power. I don't call it power. I don't see it as power. I call it influence because I'm very intentional. About. People and them. Being their best selves. I tend to be thankful. Very forward-thinking and to me, gratitude activities. Our EI either present activity. Or it's more of a reflective activity. And I don't do a good job of reflecting. I make a plan and then I move on to the next thing. I've recognized that within me, probably within the last six months, and I have been working on intentionally. We're reflecting. So right now, currently on a daily basis. I write three things that I'm thankful for. And I try to go deeper than, oh, I'm thankful that they're sunshine today, which you could be thankful for depending on where you live. But I live in North Carolina. So there's more than likely I'm going to have some sunshine. Now am I thankful that I can see the sunshine today? Absolutely. So it's a very present. And reflective activity. I'm trying to work on that a little bit more to increase my presence and crease being present. And. To not. Just do a thing and move on. But really understand the significance of what I've just done, what I've just accomplished. Be in that and then move forward. Here's some practices that you can do. As busy nurses as we are. And you can do these even within your workplace. You can do these for developing your home. Into an atmosphere of peace and happiness and gratitude. You could do it. If there's something personal that you want to work on. To cultivate a little bit more gratitude you can do this. One is to. Journal on a daily basis and write. Two to three things that you're grateful for. Maybe even at the end of your Workday. So I talked about how it's important to do it at the beginning. To help reduce that stress. But even at the end of your Workday to debrief. Just a little bit. Sometimes we have some bad days. Those might be the best days to work on it. Or some days skip it. Because you're just trying to process what happened that day. Most days are just run of the mill. And so it's important. To not just be walking through life and not noticing. What's going on with your life and that gratitude practice at the end. Of your day or at the end of your shift. Is important. To help you to notice what's going on with your life and work life. Gretchen Rubin says the days are long, but the years are short. Writing down what you're thankful for helps you capture. Those fleeting moments. You can do gratitude rounds, many, of us as teams. We are usually huddling on a daily basis on a weekly basis. And so it's just a good opportunity to share one thing with your colleagues you don't have to do this formally. You can do this as a group of nurses who might be part of the sunshine committee. The social committee or tagged with wellbeing for your group. That's one thing that you can do to help positive, to help. Foster a positive team culture. You can have gratitude and patients' care. Sometimes our patients, are. Tough. And they press through. We can take a moment to appreciate their resilience, their progress, honestly, even to cause a lot of times they're, they're either tough or either they are struggling mentally if you have a patient who is struggling and you're trying to encourage them, that's a good moment to think of like, what are three things we're grateful for? What are one or two things we're grateful for or. Sometimes they don't know the progress that they're making. Here's some that tell them here's some things that you can be grateful for. You've made progress with this. They don't know where they should be sometimes we don't communicate well on where they should be on the spectrum of their healing process. So, this is a good opportunity for us to communicate to them. Here's how you're doing. Everybody wants to know how they're making progress even if it's something small, make it a practice to say, here's how you're making progress. Here's what I see in you. Sometimes we can say that to our teammates, that we're working with. Here's what I see in you today. And I'm proud of you. Mel Robbins also suggest starting your day with five minutes of a gratitude reflection. What if you woke up every day and said, I'm grateful for this day and I'm going to make it count. The other thing you can do is create a gratitude board. In your break room. On your screen saver, maybe. To remind you of what you're grateful for. During tough moments. In closing. Just remember gratitude is more than a feeling. It's a practice to transform your mindset and help you find joy. Even during the hardest times. Remember that Bernay brown says gratitude, invites joy into our lives. It's not joy that makes us grateful. It's gratitude that makes us joyful. So if you're wanting more joy in your life, start with gratitude practices. In this season of giving, I want to challenge you to try at least one gratitude practice that I mentioned. Whether it's journaling Sharon, a moment of thanks with a colleague. Or just reflecting on the impact that you're making. You just need to do one thing. Just one. As I end this podcast, I will be taking a break for the rest of 20, 24. And I will be back with you. In January. And I'm so excited about that. I'm so excited about being able to take this time. To reflect on the podcast and see what I want to do differently. If you have any ideas, feel free to drop me an email. If you want more interviews, if you want book reviews of theirs. A certain subject that you want me to cover please feel free to send me an email and let me know. I am more than willing to help you walk through that process or. Give you more information about it. I'm grateful for each of you who listens, learns and grows with me here on the ambitious nurse podcast. Your dedication to your careers and your patients inspire me. All the time. And I am grateful for the opportunity. To lead you in growing your career. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a fellow nurse and let them know you're thankful for their impact in nursing. Don't forget to subscribe for more career strategies and inspiration, and I'll see you in 2025.

27:45

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with another nurse who may be unsure of where to go next in their career or maybe need some career clarity? Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple podcast. It brings me so much joy and so much encouragement to know this podcast is helping you. Now go get the career you want and not the one you settle for. And I'll meet you back here next Thursday for another episode. See you soon!