At the beginning of the semester we were asked to identify two personal goals for ourselves that we would work toward as the semester progressed. I took this as an opportunity to really reflect on my life and figure out what I struggle with most. I first thought about how I react to all of the events that happen in my life that I have no control over and even events that I do have control over. My emotional reaction and response to those types of situations can usually be very extreme, which causes me to live an anxious life. My first goal is very important to me because I knew by striving to reach for this goal, my anxiety regarding different types of situations would decrease. The goal is to be able to have control over my emotions and accept circumstances and events that are beyond my control. I then continued to think about the underlying cause of the anxiety and that was my busy schedule. My second goal is to be able to have a good life balance between school, soccer, friends, family, and myself. I have always felt very overwhelmed with having so many responsibilities since it causes me a lot of stress, and that I knew that it makes me on edge and anxious. Both of these goals are very important to me because working on them has begun to change my mental health.

            Having emotional control is something that is very important when it comes to a person’s mental health. Since I struggle with that, I put that as my top goal for this semester. When it comes to success I did not fully get to where I want to be, but I have come a long way from the beginning of the semester and even from past years. I attempted to use some of the strategies that I had listed at the beginning of the semester to help me attain this goal. I tried really hard not to hold myself at an unreasonable standard and limit overthinking. For example, when I am about to take a test I let my emotions take over and they end up consuming me, which at times reflects poorly in my test grade. I started giving myself credit for working very hard to study and I would tell myself that I did the best I could and that is all I can do, everything else is out of my control. I also started to not react right away, it still happens sometimes, but when something makes me angry or upset I try to give it time to think about it and how it really makes me feel before I react. This was not on my list, but something that has really helped me with this goal is taking CBD oil every morning. It helps keep me relaxed throughout the day, which enables me to focus on the strategies I had listed when dealing with emotional control. The biggest barrier for me is that since it is easy for little things to make me mad, it has been harder for me to fully reach the goal since I had to work hard on not freaking out over little things first.

            When it comes to Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model of change, I started at the preparation phase for emotional control. I started planning right away what I would do to help me get a grip on my emotions. I then tried to incorporate those strategies into my everyday life. I would give myself credit where I deserved it, especially when it comes to how I have been dealing with emotional stressors. Through the semester I have progressed to reaching my goal, but I feel like I am currently still in the action phase because I am still trying to figure out what really works for me and I have yet to fully be satisfied with my goal. I do not think I have anything to change for next semester. If I keep changing at my own phase I will eventually get out of the action phase, and have my strategies become a part of my new behavior.

            Being able to determine some of the big stressors in my life, and being able to work to overcome them has been very helpful. My second goal is to have a healthy balance between school, soccer, friends, family, and myself. This is something I have been trying to do for years, so putting it in stone as a goal has allowed me to actually come up with ways to achieve it. I have done better this semester with balancing my life than I have any other year. Usually, if I have an exam I would need to be by myself for days so I can study and if I was not studying I would be at practice. That caused me to always be in a bad mood since I never had time for friends, family, or myself. One of the strategies I listed was to start school work as early as possible, which I really started doing. I realized that starting work and studying earlier and doing it for not as much time during the day really helped my mental health. I am now able to realize when it is appropriate to do homework and when it is appropriate to take a break and hang out with friends and family. When it comes to having time for myself, that can be hard since I have three roommates, but I have been going to bed earlier in order to have time to myself before I go to sleep. The biggest barrier for this goal is that I am a very bad test taker and I over think a lot of the school work I do, so it takes me a long time to do anything school related. I really have to think about how much time I am going to need and when I should do it. This has been hard because sometimes I find myself not taking the appropriate amount of time to complete what I need to do since I have been trying so hard to balance everything.

            Looking at where I am in the aspect of change, I would say that similar to my first goal, I am currently in the action phase. For the past few years I have realized this has been an issue for me so up until I made this a goal, I was in the contemplation phase of the Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model of change. When I officially made this something a wanted to work toward, I moved into the planning phase where I made a list of strategies that would help me attain the goal. Taking the strategies that I came up with and incorporating them into my everyday life to the best of my ability, has allowed me to move into the action phase. I have come a long way and I am proud of how I hard I have been working on my goals, but I would not say that I have fully achieved my goal. I am on the right track to the maintenance phase, so I just need to keep doing what I am doing until I have a full grasp on balancing my life. If I had to think about something to change it would be to stop focusing on what I would be missing out on if I didn’t do something, and to think about making the decision that would benefit my life. I need to try looking at risks and benefits more before deciding, whether it be hanging out with friends or doing homework.

            Striving to attain both of these goals will help me a lot in life, especially if I get a hold over them at a young age. Having emotional control and being able to balance everything that life throws at you is crucial when it comes to patient care. Being able to control your emotions will help a lot when you’re a nurse because there are situations that you are going to have to deal with on a daily basis that may trigger emotional response. For example, nurses deal with sickness and death every day and that is something that could be potentially really detrimental to a nurse’s mental health. Having emotional control would enable a nurse to show their patients empathy and care for them without becoming emotionally attached or crossing any lines.

As I stated above, being able to balance your life will already make it easier to have emotional control because you would not be so on edge. Without balance, nurses can become tired and easily distracted since they could be thinking about the other things they still have to do. It is not good for the patient to have a nurse that struggles with balance, they may be more likely to make a mistake or not show empathy because they are too focused on their own life. This is something that I have thought about and that I never want to happen. I want all my patients to feel safe and I want to be able to only focus on them when I enter their room. That has given me even more motivation to achieve these goals. I do not think I need to make any changes in order to achieve them, I just feel as though these are goals that will eventually be reached over time and the time is not here yet. I am very proud of how far I have come since I set goals that I have been struggling with for years. I will continue to work toward them and use my strategies as a guide whenever I see myself drifting away from my desired outcome.