Hello and welcome to my blog! I’m so happy you are here!

This blog is truly a dream. I never thought that one day it would come to fruition. It only took 3 years of internal deliberation to finally decide that this was a good idea. Now here we are. Honestly, I’m still not sure I’m fully ready to put my life on display. But life isn’t meant to be lived in fear; I choose to be courageous and vulnerable (Ek! This is scary!).

Convincing myself to finally take the plunge was quite a feat. Let me share with you some reasons why I decided to begin this new chapter. For starters, I want to be the girl that I needed 3 years ago when I began college. The girl that says it’s okay to not always know. It’s okay to not always have a perfect plan. It’s okay to second guess. And above all, the girl that says perfectionism is a weakness, not a strength. Here, I’ll say it again for the people in the back — PERFECTIONISM IS A WEAKNESS, NOT A STRENGTH. Nursing school is hard. Harder than a mother-trucker. My biggest enemy through it all has not been the clinicals. Not the skills classes. Not the professors. Not the NCLEX-style exams. My biggest enemy has been myself and my desire to be the perfect version of whatever it was that I was trying to be — the perfect student, the perfect classmate, the perfect exam-taker, the perfect nurse. The list goes on and on. This perfectionism has plagued not only my journey through nursing school, it seeps into all aspects of my life. And so, this blog is a platform in which I can share my experiences and expose my shortcomings in order to become the best nurse, and person, I can be.

My second goal is to show you that nursing school does not have to be your life. You do not have to enter nursing school thinking, this is all I am for the next 4 years. Wrong. You can be so many things AND be a nursing student. I hope to not only tell you, but show you. The best piece of advice that I received from a seasoned nurse is this: the best nurses know that the priority patient, is you. Meaning, putting yourself first is what will allow you to give your patients the nursing care that they deserve. I believe this pertains not only to current RN’s, but also to those working to become one.

Finally, I want to address the name of my blog, Sweat and Soul. This is cheesy, but here it goes. The name comes from my desire to put sweat and soul into everything I do and hope to be in life. Sweat represents my robust efforts and soul represents my wholehearted devotion to my craft. I aspire to consistently put sweat and soul into all of my pursuits. Cheesy, I know.

I hope that this blog will inspire true connection, growth, passion and hope for those who read it. Not only for the nursing profession, but for life as a whole. There’s so much to discuss. I hope you’ll stick around for a while to see what we uncover.

With Love,

Lovisa Kay