As nurses, we see the good, the bad, and the ugly of life, society, and humanity. We encounter belligerent patients, impatient families, nurse bullies, arrogant surgeons, uncaring managers, and miserable nurse peers. So how do we stay positive amidst such negativity? How do we protect ourselves against those who would prefer to drag us down with them, including other nurses?

The Negative Nurse

Negativism, cynicism, and unhappiness are widespread conditions that infect a large number of nurses and nursing students. No matter how popular and potentially satisfying a nursing career may seem, there’s plenty of stress, negativity, moaning, groaning, and dissatisfaction.

Even the most earnest and well-meaning new grads can quickly find themselves face-to-face with their own growing sense of jadedness if they’re not careful to guard against it. After all, if you’re surrounded by a bunch of Negative Nancys and Davey Downers, their pessimism will find you by what we might call nurse osmosis.

We’re all different in our set point for relative happiness or unhappiness, but we’re pretty good at worrying, complaining, and feeling anxious about things we can’t control. This is where negativity takes hold.

Build a Firewall

It only takes one negative person who complains and grumbles to cast a pall over the rest of the workplace. Have you ever experienced how one person’s drama or trauma can suck the air right out of a room? This is what can happen in a hospital unit, home health agency, or other workplace where nurses congregate and chronic complainers go unchallenged.

While you don’t necessarily want to become alienated from your colleagues, there are times when, in the spirit of self-preservation, you must remove yourself from the negativity within your workplace.

If one nurse dominates the break room with nothing but complaints, you can find another place to eat lunch. If there are several nurses who regularly engage in gossip, you don’t need to spend time around them.

Your responsibility is to build a firewall between yourself and those who would drag you down. This is an essential survival strategy for those of us who are highly susceptible to others’ negativity.

Your firewall is spiritual and psychoemotional, erected to protect you from exposure to influences you’d rather avoid. After all, how can your career move forward with joy when you’re being dragged through the mud?

Your last defenses against the negative forces around you are your dedication to your work, your desire to live a good life, and your personal commitment to immersing yourself in positivity and optimism as often as you can.

Blinders and Earplugs

When faced with negative colleagues, you can wear your metaphorical blinders and earplugs and ignore whatever is happening around you. Ignorance can sometimes be bliss. However, self-protection notwithstanding, there are times when your blinders and earplugs have to come off, and here are some examples:

You walk into the break room, and several nurses are gossiping about a colleague who isn’t present. They’re laughing, making derogatory comments, and being altogether unkind. Only you can know if it’s safe, but this situation may prompt you to speak up and say, “I think Melissa is a great nurse — if you have something to say, why not talk to her directly?”

This can be a risky strategy, especially if the gossipers are also the resident bullies on the floor — do you want to bring their wrath down upon you, too? It can be tough to step in and speak up, even when you know that standing up for Melissa is the right thing to do.

You can also do as described in this article

at Forbes.com, using the nine prescribed magic words:

“Imagine you’re in a meeting and you hear someone make one of those blanket negative statements (e.g. “that will never work,” “this company doesn’t care about its employees,” “we’re just gonna get trounced by the competition,” etc.). The 9 words you’re going to say are “I’m curious, what evidence brought you to that conclusion? What happens next follows a pretty typical pattern. The negative person might say, “Oh, you know, we’ve just never been good at implementing new technology” or they might say, “Well, it’s just obvious.” But regardless of what they say exactly, they typically evidence that there’s not a lot of factual basis for their negativity.”

Another situation involving speaking up would be where you directly observe a colleague (or group of colleagues) being outwardly cruel to one of your coworkers. It’s one thing to intervene when people are gossiping about someone who isn’t present — it’s another thing entirely when a nurse is being directly bullied in front of her peers or patients. Naming the behavior and calling it what it is may be your best bet to stopping bullies, although documentation and the written corroboration of witnesses are also key.

Blinders and earplugs are fine when we want to be removed from the negativity of our colleagues’ complaints and laments. Still, we all need to step forward and draw the line when actual bullying, discrimination, or harassment is taking place.

Adhere to Your Inner Calling

You didn’t choose nursing as a calling and a profession in order to listen to your fellow nurses’ complaints and curses. You chose nursing for personal reasons, most likely related to your desire to be of service and touch the lives of fellow humans in need.

Negativity can strike any nurse at any time. Nursing is stressful by nature, and it’s easy to understand why a nurse might become morose and less than compassionate. Patients and their families can be complex, and colleagues can be less than perfect. Meanwhile, the healthcare system can easily make us feel significantly jaded. Remaining positive amidst these powerful influences can seem like a superhuman feat.

You could picture a nurse angel and a nurse devil on either of your shoulders. These two figures represent competing forces inside of you — that of the naive, optimistic new grad ready for anything and that of the seasoned nurse who’s already exhausted from the combined burdens of patients, colleagues, and unceasing work.

In the end, remember that you poured your blood, sweat, tears, time, and money into becoming a nurse, and you need to ask yourself how much of your original dream you’re willing to sacrifice on the altar of negativity. This is a question of mindset and of your ability and willingness to say, “To hell with the negativity; I’m going to focus on why I chose this profession in the first place.” Talking back to the negativity with positive statements and beliefs is a strong antidote.

Nurse, it’s ultimately your decision. Negativity can be tough to overcome, but you must. Burnout and unhappiness are just two of the symptoms you risk exhibiting if you allow negativity and cynicism to take hold, so fight the good fight in your own psyche and push back against the voices of dread.

Build your firewall, inoculate yourself against negativity, and recommit to the career you envisioned. The journey is yours, and the choice is always yours.

The post Build a Firewall Against Nurse Negativity first appeared on Daily Nurse.