Welcome to 2018. Most people are making resolutions on how they are going to lose weight, travel, invest, etc. However, we are coming towards the end of January & most people have tossed their resolutions aside. A few days ago I was listening to one of my favorite podcast, Increase Your Impact by Justin Sua (highly recommended & they are usually less than 5 minutes). The discussion involved taking risk. For some reason this message hit a nerve within me.
Taking a risk involves change. Change is uncomfortable, painful, and sometimes change is unknown. Many people never take a risk in their life because of the fact change is uncomfortable. We wait for the right time to move, have children, get married, change jobs, leave the bad relationship, etc. However, what happens when we take the risk & it goes wrong? We always envision when we take a leap of faith that things are going to be great.
I took a risk two years ago. I gave up my stable job I wasn’t in love with anymore to go travel nurse. I envisioned doing this for years. Seeing the country from sea to shining sea while doing what I love. My risk didn’t exactly pan out how I envisioned. And to be honest, for the last year, I have quietly kept to myself the feelings of disappointment, bitterness, and anger I have had. I will be honest. I felt like God had abandoned me & sometimes I still feel that way.
Justin said something that hit me in a way I never imagined. If you take a risk & it doesn’t work out, does that mean you failed? The answer is no because you were brave enough to take a risk & follow your dreams. Some people never do that. I thought about it.
What did I lose? I lost money. My confidence in my abilities felt shaken. I had to move in with my mother. I don’t get the privacy I am use to having. I lost my ability to be somewhere different every few months I chose.
What did I gain? I have made some amazing friends that will be with my for a lifetime. I got to live my dream & see it isn’t as easy as people make it seem even when you do the right thing. I learned how to fail in a major way. I realized I have an amazing support system of friends/family that love me whether I succeed or hit bumps in the road. I am learning I can’t do it all. I learned that my mother is my biggest cheerleader & I am forever grateful for her. She is my rock when things look bleak. She has the ability to make things look bright even when you feel low. I also learned that my issues weren’t from ability to care for patients, but with competing against the machine of travel nursing (making money even if it means screwing the nurses caring for the patients.) From California to Texas – I always had patients tell me they appreciated my care for them.
So did I fail? Not really, sometimes a failure is setting you up for something greater. Maybe it wasn’t meant for me to be a full time travel nurse. Maybe this struggle is setting me up for something unexpected. What I do know is I am slowly letting go of the baggage of this experience because it taught me so much. Life can’t always be filled with successes. Sometimes you have to take a risk & fail.
Two quotes that I continually look to are these.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett