Starting a new nursing job can feel exciting and overwhelming, but every experienced nurse began as a learner. These quotes offer encouragement for new nurses as they build confidence, learn from mistakes and grow into their role. The article also highlights Averett University’s ABSN program as a pathway for eligible students to prepare for nursing licensure.
Starting your first nursing role can be both exciting and overwhelming. You’re stepping into a profession that asks a lot of you, clinically, emotionally and mentally. It’s normal to feel unsure at times. Every experienced nurse was once in your position, learning through each shift, each patient and each challenge.
These new job quotes offer perspective and encouragement as you begin your journey, reminding you that growth takes time, mistakes are part of learning and the work you’re doing truly matters.
Starting Where You Are and Taking Action
- “I think that the foundation of every great transition, regardless … of your level, is your ability to speed up the learning process when you come in.”
— Michael D. Watkins - “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected.”
— Henry David Thoreau - “Do what you can with what you’ve got, where you are.”
— Squire Bill Widener - “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
Howard Zinn
- “To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always.”
— Edward Livingston Trudeau - “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
— Desmond Tutu - “The way to maintain motivation and achieve peak levels of desire is to work on tasks of ‘just manageable difficulty.’ The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty.”
— James Clear - “Without community service, we would not have a strong quality of life. It’s important to the person who serves as well as the recipient. It’s the way in which we ourselves grow and develop.”
— Dorothy Height
Building Confidence and Growing Into Your Role
- “The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest.”
— William Osler - “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt - “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
— Henry S. Haskins - “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
— Will Durant - “Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you imagine it.”
— George Lucas - “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
— Steve Jobs
“Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.”
— Hippocrates
- “Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.”
— Dag Hammarskjöld - “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Carl W. Buehner - “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love, and you can be that servant.”
— Martin Luther King Jr. - “You may not always have a comfortable life. And you will not always be able to solve all the world’s problems at once. But don’t ever underestimate the impact you can have, because history has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.”
— Michelle Obama
Learning From Mistakes and Staying Resilient
- “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”
— Mary Anne Radmacher - “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”
— Oscar Wilde - “A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
— James Joyce - “Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter’s or sculptor’s work.”
— Florence Nightingale - “We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.”
— Maya Angelou - “The best way out is always through.”
— Robert Frost - “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.”
— Louisa May Alcott - “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
— Seneca
“Let us never consider ourselves finished nurses. … We must be learning all of our lives.”
Florence Nightingale
Start Your Nursing Career at Averett
Before you can start a new job as a nurse, you must earn your nursing degree and become licensed. Averett University’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program in Virginia can prepare you for licensure. If you hold a non-nursing bachelor’s degree or at least 60 credits, you could be eligible to apply.
Request information and connect with our admissions team.