Shoot for the moon, or something like that.

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you’re among the stars.

Coincidentally, this was my eight grade graduation quote {forever and a day ago}. I can still remember the giant sheets of blue scroll paper, you know the kind that is reserved for the teacher’s lounge, draped across the entire back wall of the stage in the gymnasium. It was adorned with glittery stars of all sizes with the saying painted across the top. It was a perfect example of your quintessential small town school attempting to look at least a little less small town and ultimately falling short. I guess the decor landed among the stars.

Ultimately, I can’t decide if it promotes mediocrity or if is for people like me so we can sleep at night knowing we at least got a consolation prize. However, I digress. A trip down memory lane was not the point of this post. What I was and am trying to get at is that every day, I have a better understanding about myself and my motivations. {Insert some nonsense about enneagram and trauma responses here.} The bottom line is I have always been, and will probably continue to be an overachiever. Mediocrity makes my skin crawl despite the fact that my entire life has a lengthy list of things at which I was merely ‘okay’. That doesn’t mean I didn’t turn myself inside out trying to attain perfection. So now here I am as an adult. I conquered nursing school with straight A’s. I got a job right out of school in a specialty. I won awards within my first 6 months of being a nurse. This should all be good enough, right? Absolutely not.

I have to do MORE!

So what do I do? I buy a testing spot for a certification exam thinking that it will make me study and be prepared enough to sit for the exam and pass the first time as a relatively new grad. Let me tell you friends, I very much regret my decision. I mean, I do, but I don’t. I’m starting to think I should really be focusing on growing my knowledge and skills naturally with experience rather than spending hours upon hours a day attempting to study and build study materials that are pocket sized and can travel with me anywhere. And yet, I get little to nothing done during these “study sessions.” I am constantly distracted by kids, life to-do’s, formatting, crafts, and just about any little thing that is remotely shiny. It isn’t that big of a deal. I have at least another six months to prepare, but I know I will blink and it will be August and I will be scrambling.

I contemplated putting together a local study group, but I have not had great success with those in the past. I don’t know if they are really all that beneficial to me, personally. Although the accountability is what matters the most, right? It’s just like a workout. You are more likely to actually do it if there are other people counting on you and expecting you to show up. Who knows, maybe I will see if there are other schmucks who have also gotten in over their heads that would like to commiserate and ultimately re-learn a bunch of stuff they may have forgotten or missed in nursing school. Either way, I’m going to continue to study and prepare, but for today I think I will be productive instead. Maybe. I mean, these walls aren’t going to paint themselves, right?