Magnet® Supporting Our Purpose

Have you heard the saying that when you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life? We have both always felt this reflects how we feel about our nursing careers. This is how many nurses view our profession. We call this passion, and perhaps it reflects how we have committed ourselves to a career of serving others. For the authors, passion aligns with purpose. Passion is about emotions; what makes us feel good. Purpose is more focused on providing the reason why we do what we do. Tying together passion and purpose, we understand how we can have significance in our careers; “Do we matter as a nurse?” When in the active state of a full-time role in clinical or executive practice, it is somewhat easier to see the purpose, and passion actively knowing we matter because people and patients tell us we matter. The concept of mattering describes an individual's perception that he or she makes a difference in the lives of others and is significant in the world. It is composed of 4 domains: 1) awareness (others are aware of your presence, and your absence is noticed); 2) reliance (others depend on you); 3) importance (feeling important to others); and 4) ego extension (others feel pride in your success).1 Mattering is an important element in engagement and well-being as well as fulfillment of purpose and passion. This is step 1 when developing a practice environment that brings forth the nurses' expertise and values for providing safe care while ensuring the patient's preferences are met.

Having an exemplary environment of care requires a focus on how nurses review, analyze, and translate the latest research findings into evidence-based practice (EBP). Since the 1800s, nurses have been conducting research. We learned this from Florence Nightingale who not only looked at mortality rates, but also used her insights, experience, and passion in the care of soldiers during the Crimean War. She blended clinical evidence with leadership evidence to make sure she adequately influenced others to implement her clinical evidence.

A survey of over 300 nurses showed a significant relationship between mattering and the level of meaning in work and fulfillment.1 From the open-ended responses in this survey, we saw statements such as a nurse was someone who “went out of their way to take care of them,” “the nurse brought a Christmas dinner to a patient who didn't have any family,” and “I go the extra mile for my patients.” These comments, while still grounded in mattering, take on the appearance of volunteerism and service to others. That too plays a role in passion and purpose and is how important enhancing the care experience of patients and families is to nurses.

One of the main reasons we come to work is because we are passionate about what we do. We care deeply about the patients' wellbeing and want to deliver high-quality care. In our leadership roles, we care deeply about our teams and want to support nurses to deliver compassionate care to each other and the patients. The stronger the alignment between our values and what we do at work, the more likely we are to feel passion for that work. Often, this passion extends beyond the formal work setting into roles where we continue to give to others. We volunteer. However, over the course of the past 3 years, we found ourselves in new territory. Each day, we learned more about a virus and mitigation factors that we needed to implement. At the time, we did not think about EBP but rather the strain it was placing on us and our colleagues. As we emerge from the pandemic, it is time to refocus and regroup with other professionals to focus on our own well-being, the new environment of care, social justice, and the flight of nurses from the profession. Now more than ever, we need to discover, innovate, and create. We must follow the emerging evidence on how to move into the future. We must extend our time to our community and our community of nurses, using what we have learned to refine our cultures to improve well-being and patient outcomes. It is an extension of passion and purpose.

Reengaging may mean that we explore and expand on areas of focus that brought us joy. For us as Magnet commissioners, it is about volunteerism as a principle of donating time and energy for the benefit of other people as a social responsibility rather than for any financial reward. Volunteering is significantly predictive of better mental and physical health outcomes.2 Volunteerism can be achieved through multiple paths, but for nurse executives like us, opportunities fit into 3 areas. We might take on an official leadership role similar to our job except we do not receive compensation. We volunteer for roles that allow us to give back or pay it forward, the basic reasons individuals are initially drawn to nursing. These are roles that may be similar to a work role such as a nonprofit board or setting up a vaccine center or maybe very different from your work role. An example of this might be a community service role in health, social, religious, or other philanthropic services.

Second, we volunteer for extracurricular activities, such as our commissioner roles, in giving knowledge and available time to professional organizations to advance the mission of that organization. We believe in the Magnet program because it is well grounded in research and evidence. As a nurse leader, the Magnet Model with its interactive forces is our EBP, and we must follow the model for the best nurse work environment. We know how important it is for nurses to be accountable for nursing practice, quality, competence, and knowledge; nurses use the structures of professional governance to actualize their decision making. The intelligence and talents of individual nurses from the field contribute greatly to the relevance and knowledge base of organizations, and through the eyes of their volunteers, an organization's purpose is realized, and the fulfillment of the volunteer is enhanced.

Finally, we serve in the role of mentoring future nurse leaders. We can both identify individuals whom we have a mentoring relationship with that has spanned years. Early in our careers, perhaps we chose a leader to mentor us because we admired them and their influence on nursing and healthcare. Later, others came to us for mentoring, which truly has been a labor of love but requires time and commitment to the relationship and the success of the other. We have volunteered our time to these relationships.

Therefore, to bring it all together, passion and purpose fuel us—giving back and paying it forward is important to us—serving others is the greatest fulfillment. Volunteering is a path we use to do all these things and to matter as a nurse in our professional world. As Oprah Winfrey says, “Every one of us is looking for the same thing; we want to know we matter.”4 Nurses matter.

1. Haizlip J, McCluney C, Hernandez M, Quatrara B, Brashers V. Mattering: how organizations, patients, and peers can affect nurse burnout and engagement. J Nurs Adm. 2020;50(5):267–273. doi:10.1097/NNA.000000000000882. 2. Nanavaty J. Volunteerism during COVID-19. Public Health Nurs. 2020;37:797–798. doi:10.1111/phn.12765. 3. Yeung JWK, Zhang Z, Kim TY. Volunteering and health benefits in general adults: cumulative effects and forms. BMC Public Health. 2018;18:8. doi:10.1186/s23889-017-4561-8. 4. Winfrey O. Oprah's The Life You Want™ Planner. Oprah Daily; October 2021.

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