With each reflection of individual performance profiles I’ve really looked at the way I take tests. The amount I switch my answers has become very apparent to me and though it has been challenging and at times frustrating, I’d rather learn my lesson and pay the price now than second guess myself on the NCLEX or with actual patients. I’ve also learned a lot about my attention span and the importance of reading the question in its entirety before jumping to things that pop out to me quickly. As the semester progressed I felt like I understood my own strengths and weaknesses more and became much more self aware. With regards to content gaps, sometimes on my remediations I would put small notes saying “Dani Review again before NCLEX” on things that I knew had come up across multiple ATI’s or within a classroom setting as a flag to myself to really hone in on these things come late May early June. I used the three critical points to focus on exactly what I needed to master more. 

At the beginning of the semester I wanted to work on celebrating my victories and progress towards my goals. I felt like I rarely if ever celebrated the small wins. This semester I had some huge personal wins including getting published in a public health medical journal, applying to my first post graduation jobs, paying off my car loan and many other moments. In the past I took these moments and moved on but this semester I really took the time and I made a sticky note wall with my roommate of things I’m proud of and I would buy myself little treats for these accomplishments. During the first week of this semester I said that I really wanted to work on work life balance and I think though I have not mastered it, I really did put in more effort. I started baking more. I started roller blading. I really focused on trying to do more things for myself. 

With regards to SMART goals, I did a pretty good job at maintaining my spreadsheet of to do’s and updating my daily to do document that I established in January. Until late February I maintained my homework timesheet spreadsheet of the completed homework assignments I had done then realized it wasn’t as beneficial as it was originally working out to be. How will I use what I’ve learned?  One specific thing I pulled away from the multiple ATI’s in the course was understanding the implications of not knowing the medications interactions with each other. Through time management skills, prioritization, delegation, and using various critical thinking frameworks I am going to become a better nurse and a more well rounded person in general.