Writer’s Choice

Creative Writing
Nursing / Life Self-Care Plan
Name
Institution
Life Self-Care Wheel
The wheel of life is a good tool for excising and measuring how every individual is balancing their lives and gaining success in all aspects of life. It is a common tool used in coaching and in trying to help people set life goals that are achievable. It encompasses all aspects of life including; emotional, spiritual, psychological, intellectual, social, and physical (Lawson & Myers, 2011).
Nursing as a profession involves caring for the well-being of patients throughout their illnesses, thus it creates distress and imbalances in the lives of the nurses (Sanchez-Reilly, Morrison, Carey, Bernacki, O’Neill, Kapo … & de Lima Thomas, 2013). It often takes a tall order on the well-being of the nurses and caregivers; therefore it is important for them to create a balance between work, school, and life.
As a nurse, I chose to adopt a life self-care wheel to rate my satisfaction in the different areas of my life, find out the areas I need to make changes and how to make it happen.
Below is my wheel of life:
Instructions:
Review each dimension and rate how you relate to it, selecting a number from 1-10; where 1 is low and 10 is high. For all dimensions rated 5 and below create a plan on how best to change these aspects in your life and develop a more balanced and sucessful life.
Dimensions Rating 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Intellectual Social Physical Spiritual Occupational Emotional Environmental My strongest aspects are physical, social and spiritual with rates of 8, 10 and 8 respectively.

To continue maintaining a positive balance in life, I will keep up with attending the gym twice a week and eating a healthy balanced diet; I will maintain my social cycle of friends and attend church service for my spiritual growth. In the last few months of faithfully attending mid-week devotion services which has enabled me to perform better in my studies and working as a nurse.
My weak points include emotional at a rating of 4 especially in the last couple of weeks, due to having patients with excessive pain and lifelong ailments. This has disturbed my peace of mind, but sharing my concerns with friends and family eases the burden. I will have to read motivational books as a tool to uplift my spirits and attend the hospitals free counseling sessions which will help me draw a barrier between my work and life.
Another weak point is the environmental with a rating of 3 where I work, the hospital is in a poor neighborhood and I have safety concerns. I am always conscious of my surrounding, but I will join self-defense classes to learn how to protect myself and avert danger. I will carry a flashlight and paper spray to defend myself against any attack.
References
Lawson, G., & Myers, J. E. (2011) Wellness, Professional Quality of Life, and Career‐Sustaining Behaviors: What Keeps Us Well?. Journal of Counseling & Development, 89(2), 163-171.
Sanchez-Reilly, S., Morrison, L. J., Carey, E., Bernacki, R., O’Neill, L., Kapo, J., … & deLima Thomas, J. (2013). Caring for oneself to care for others: physicians and their self-care. The journal of supportive oncology, 11(2), 75