NR-351 Week 6 Assignment: Scholarly Paper Phase 2 (GRADED A)

Scholarly Paper Phase 2 Chamberlain College of Nursing NR351: Transitions in Professional Nursing Scholarly Paper Phase 2 Are you someone who can name five good things that has occurred so far in your day? How about four? Or three? Studies show that writing down three good things that has occurred during your day can improve your overall outlook and you will feel happier. This paper will serve as a summary of the article “Three Good Things: Build resilience and improve well-being” and how it can improve our profession as nurses. Assigned Article Summary Having a positive outlook on life creates a better and enjoyable environment. When we train the mind to think positively, we feel better about ourselves and have a better attitude, studies show. The article, “Three Good Things: Build resilience and improve well-being”, discusses how nurses can improve their outlook in order to improve the care provided to their patients. Because nurses extend themselves to their patients, nurses are often left feeling burned out and stressed out quite frequently. This leads to low performance with patients and workload. “Researchers have demonstrated that positive reflection can reduce burnout, build resilience, and improve the well-being of individual participants” (Roberts, 2018, p.26). A strategy to combat burn out and stress is “three good things.” Each day, a person is to write down three good things that occurred during the day. The person is to do this every day for a set period. The goal of Three good things is to train the mind to think positively and forget the few bad things that may have occurred during your day. “The power behind Three Good Things lies in our increased ability to perceive positive emotions” (Roberts, 2018, p.27). According to studies, participants experienced a “40% drop in depression, fewer delays, better work-life balance and less conflict with others” (Roberts, 2018, p.26). Three Good Things goes beyond nursing. It can be implemented in all aspects of life. To start, one simply must write down good things that occurred during their day for a maximum of two weeks. In the workplace, three good things can be passed along when giving change of shift report, as a way to continue the positive energy. During meetings, employees can implement this tool in order to continue the positive energy both inside and outside of the meeting. “This powerful tool can be used to improve your current levels of well-being and any time you begin to feel that your personal resources are being depleted” (Roberts, 2018, p.27.) Impact of Assigned Article Content on Future Practice Being a nurse, we tend to put ourselves last. Our patients’ needs always come first. This leaves us feeling overwhelmed, tired, stressed and on edge. When we don’t have an outlet, this will begin to affect our work performance, thus affecting our patients. When I work four twelve hour shifts in a row, I feel the stress and burnout discussed in the article. On my days off, I look forward to rejuvenating and reenergizing myself. For nurses to have an outlet which can reduce burnout will help nurses in the future. Nurses can have more of a positive attitude which will translate in their work performance and have a better patient experience. Nurses will probably feel less inclined to leave the profession. The work-life balance will improve because three good things can be carried over into the home life as well. In the long run, not only will patients have a better patient-nurse experience, nurses will also be happier in their jobs. Nurses will be more inclined to stay longer in their profession than they normally would. With Three good Things, new nurses entering the profession can implement this from the beginning of their career and have a much better chance of longevity in the profession. Overall, nurse performance will be up. Conclusion In summary, “Three Good Things” is a tool which an individual uses in order to find three good things that has occurred during their day. This will train the mind to think more positive and forget about dwelling on the few bad things that may have occurred. The more you focus on the positive, the more the brain will remember the good and not the bad. This is important in nursing because, as nurses, we tend to experience burn out rather quickly. We may not have had a good day at work and it carries over outside of work or translates to our patients. Our patients are the most important factor in our jobs and providing excellent care is key. Three good things can be carried over into our personal lives by simply writing down the things that were good throughout the day. It will eventually be a chain reaction and more and more people will end up thinking more positive. Being negative breeds negative energy and that is something that can be a detriment of any nurse. References Roberts, P. (2018). Three Good Things: Build resilience and improve well-being. American Nurse Today, 13(12), 26–28. Retrieved from