Latest / The Shift Podcast / 112. Acceptance of Criticism

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112. Acceptance of Criticism · The Shift Podcast

0:02
I am really excited to be joined by Migli today.
0:05
She comes all the way from Lithuania and we're just going
0:08
to have a conversation and have fun today about coaching and
0:11
everything that's going on with her and her world.
0:13
So let's just start out. Let's have you introduce
0:16
yourself to everybody. Start there.
0:19
So hello everyone, my name is Miguel, I'm from Lithuania.
0:23
It's far, far in Eastern Europe. I am an advanced practice nurse.
0:32
I'm 26 years old, so I'm kind of new in the medical field.
0:36
And my specialty is the emergency medicine.
0:41
And this is the place that I feel I am, that I'm the best in
0:47
the medical position. And what I'm trying to achieve,
0:50
my medical career, is to become the best version of myself in
0:54
the emergency medicine and to show all the nurses that this
0:59
field is one of the most interesting and difficult
1:03
places, and you can proceed a career really professionally.
1:10
So yeah, started my career from the emergency medicine.
1:16
Awesome. Tell us like, because I, I'm
1:18
just like thinking what people listening would have questions
1:21
about like all the way there in Lithuania.
1:23
And like my question for you is, if you could you tell us like a
1:27
little bit about what emergency room life is like there?
1:30
Because I know how it is like in the States, but I'm sure it
1:33
differs a little bit there for you.
1:36
I guess it's all the same in the all of the countries.
1:41
We have a few hospitals that one hospital is more like a
1:46
therapeutic. The other hospital is more like
1:49
a trauma center. So I'm working in like more
1:53
trauma center hospital in that emergency department.
1:56
So when the patient comes, they go to register it first, then
2:00
they go to the three R zone. The nurses then trying to
2:06
question the patient, what is the main causes, why they came
2:10
to the ER. We're trying to hear all of the
2:14
problems and then decide to which medical doctor they should
2:18
go. And then we are deciding if they
2:20
are going to go to A, to a surgeon, to a therapeutic, to a
2:25
traumatologist or their, their condition is quite difficult and
2:32
they need to go to the emergencies room, intensive care
2:36
room. So yeah, I guess it's the basic
2:41
where all of the emergency medicine rooms are quite the
2:45
same in the in Europe. Yeah.
2:47
So it's no different. I'm curious for you because like
2:52
in the States, it's very much people go to a lot of urgent
2:56
cares and then on the weekends or after hours they go to ER if
3:01
an urgent care isn't open. Is that kind of how it is like
3:05
there for you where there's urgent cares or do just
3:07
everybody goes to the ER? No, they go strictly to the ER.
3:11
We do not have like the emergency care rooms like they
3:17
have in in other countries. They go straight to the hospital
3:20
if the polyclinics does not work.
3:23
And sometimes the polyclinics do not work on the working days.
3:27
So the patients don't know go, they don't know where they have
3:34
to go to get the medical care they need.
3:36
So they're just going straight to the ER and just wishing that
3:41
we can help with all of the problems that they suffered not
3:45
only for the past week but and for the past three months, and
3:49
even for a longer term. OK.
3:52
So you're dealing with a lot of chronic issues then?
3:55
Yeah. We have like a really big
4:00
patient income in our emergency department because in our
4:05
capital business, we have like 4 hospitals.
4:09
And this hospital that I'm working in, we have the largest
4:13
numbers of the patients that comes to us every day.
4:16
OK, wow, yeah, so a lot of triage, a lot of chronic
4:20
illness. OK, I get a better picture of it
4:22
now. My question for you, which I, it
4:26
was so interesting when we first met because you're kind of
4:33
you're like rolling out advanced practice nursing in ER in
4:38
Lithuania. And I just found that to be so
4:41
interesting. So tell me like how that
4:44
endeavor has been for you and kind of like what you came to
4:47
coaching for? Well, to be honest, the advanced
4:53
practice nursing in Lithuania is not so popular at the moment.
4:59
We the the students finished the studies, but we do not have
5:03
enough working places because our country does not know where
5:09
to put us in the field and where to start putting us in the
5:13
emergency department, for example.
5:15
So at the moment in my hospital, I am the only one who is working
5:20
as an advanced practice nurse. But unfortunately, I do not do
5:24
any other specific procedures or things that I can do with my
5:29
master's degree. Right now I'm just comfortably
5:32
waiting in my working place when the country will let me do some
5:36
things and just, you know, trying to be comfortable and
5:40
doing all of the procedures that I can do, like my best.
5:45
Yeah. What kind?
5:47
Of challenges has that brought up for you?
5:49
Because we've coached a lot on that.
5:51
So what kind of challenges does that bring up for you being the
5:54
only advanced practice nurse in the young?
5:56
Well, first of all, you said it correctly, the first one and the
6:01
second one is my young age, because the specialty is quite
6:06
new in Lithuania. And not only the doctors does
6:11
not know that this specialty exists in Lithuania, but nurses
6:16
as well, they do not know that this can be, this can be
6:21
achieved in Lithuania. Like I'm, I'm talking about the
6:24
older nurses. So yeah, the main difficulty is
6:31
not trusting enough like with me as a specialist, because
6:38
everyone's thinking, well, I guess they're thinking she's
6:42
quite young, she does not have so much experience.
6:45
I work here so many years and she's just new and she's just
6:49
trying to something that's nobody done never before.
6:54
So, yeah, the main difficulties is I do not get enough support
7:00
from my colleagues and that's like affects me that I do not
7:07
get a lot of confidence, confidence in myself.
7:11
And when you were my coaching teacher, we talked about it very
7:17
much because I've lost my confidence in myself.
7:21
After every shift, I became more and more stressed, more and more
7:26
unsatisfied with myself as a nurse, as unsatisfied with my
7:30
work. I became like obsessed with
7:34
learning, learning. And one more time learning and
7:37
trying to show to everyone that I can do something that none of
7:42
the other nurses are doing in Lithuania.
7:45
But unfortunately I've burned out pretty quickly and as I've
7:50
said, I lost interested in working in the emergency
7:56
department and working as a nurse.
8:00
It became so stressful and painful.
8:05
I didn't want to go to the other shifts.
8:08
I didn't want to think when I will have to go to the other
8:11
shift. At my shifts, I became
8:16
unsatisfied with myself, with how I triage the patients, with
8:20
how I make some procedures for the patients.
8:24
So yeah, it became there I became very pessimistic of
8:29
myself and of my work. So yeah, that's when I tried to
8:35
searching other places to work, maybe going abroad and then I
8:40
could please completely lost myself in the medical field.
8:44
And I just understood that I need some advice, I need some
8:48
medical help. And then successfully I found
8:52
you. Yeah.
8:54
Tell me like how coaching has helped you with some of those
8:57
challenges that you just talked about?
8:59
Well, first of all, when we met, you already saw that I'm really
9:05
unconfident with myself, I can say that at least.
9:09
And you've tried to give me some questions.
9:13
Why are you feeling like this? Why are you thinking that those
9:17
people are thinking those things about you?
9:21
How do you know that they are thinking this and that about
9:25
you? And I always assumed because of
9:28
how people look at me and and how people talk to me.
9:32
But then, yeah, I understood that I cannot read their minds.
9:36
I cannot understand what they are going at the moment.
9:41
So maybe I'm just making some assumptions.
9:44
So one of the first things that your coaching sessions taught me
9:49
is to not make assumptions of what other people is thinking
9:54
about you because you didn't know for sure.
9:57
And those negative thoughts, they just lower you down, down,
10:01
down. And then you became more and
10:04
more unsatisfied with yourself, with your work.
10:07
And you cannot, you cannot have to say part your personal life
10:17
and your working life. And you get mixed up and you get
10:21
not only unsatisfied with your working place, but with your
10:24
family life as well. So yeah, the first things is not
10:29
to make like assumptions what these people are thinking about
10:35
you, because then you will eventually try trying to believe
10:39
that it is true. I'm making assumptions that
10:43
means it is true what these people think about me.
10:45
So yeah, my confidence level, it's lowered down.
10:50
And what I saw is I'm not satisfied with how I'm working.
10:56
I'm not. I am unsatisfied with my family,
11:01
with my boyfriend. And you tried to Get Me Out of
11:08
that thing. And little by little I
11:13
understood that the only one I can trust at the moment is
11:17
myself. And you suggested me to go into
11:20
loneliness. And first of all, I was, I was
11:23
really afraid of that because I was, I was never that kind of
11:28
person who liked to be lonely. But when you are with a large
11:33
amount of your working staff, a large amount with patients, you
11:38
get a lot of contact. And I understood that loneliness
11:43
is what a good thing because you go inside of your thoughts, you
11:48
go inside of your heart, you talk with yourself and then you
11:52
are like just dropping a map and understanding what you need at
11:56
the moment. So you've taught me about
12:00
loneliness for a long time. And I was a little bit skeptical
12:03
at the moment. Like how can loneliness help me?
12:06
I'm such a I I I really love chatting with people and being
12:11
with people, but when we try it in one session, just with your
12:17
voice go to inner me and trying to understand when they feel at
12:21
the moment. I understood that it could
12:24
really help because I started to listen myself and not listen
12:29
other people thoughts, other people's bad things about me.
12:36
So that really helped. Yeah, because it's like, even if
12:44
people did have those thoughts about us, it doesn't serve us to
12:48
keep playing them in our mind over and over and over again,
12:52
because then we're just like teaching ourselves to be and act
12:57
who we are based on what other people think of us.
13:00
Yes, but it's like when you allowed yourself to just be
13:03
lonely even though you feared it.
13:05
Then you started listening to what you needed.
13:09
Yeah, and what I remember as well is one of your, I guess,
13:15
one of your memorable examples. It's like you're standing in the
13:18
Colosseum and everyone is watching you as you're in the
13:23
centre and then and they are designing if you are a winner or
13:27
if you're a loser. So I tried to imagine that thing
13:33
and I understood that I almost, I, I always valued myself from
13:42
the other people's opinions, but I forgot to value myself as a
13:46
person for from the inside. So when I'm feeling stressed,
13:53
when I'm feeling not confident enough, I'm just trying to
13:58
remember your phrase. Go to the Coliseum and I'm just
14:03
trying to remember that I have to stand like that gladiator.
14:07
I have to get to my post and I have to get my best performance
14:12
as I can, not to satisfy the audience, but to satisfy myself
14:16
with my work. Yeah.
14:18
And when I remember one of your lessons is you can accept other
14:28
people's opinion, you can listen to it, but you can not accept it
14:34
at the moment if you're not comfortable with it.
14:36
So that really helped because it helped me to prevent a lot of
14:44
difficult conversations with my colleagues.
14:47
It helped me prevent all the drama, all the conflicts,
14:51
because I just said to them, I listen what what you're saying,
14:57
but at the moment I'm thinking that we could make the opposite
15:01
of how I'm thinking. So I'm not punishing myself and
15:06
I'm not punishing them. I'm just trying to make a point
15:10
that I have my own opinion and I think we can do both sides.
15:15
Yeah, I love that. Because like sometimes we want
15:18
to argue with that side. Like if someone's saying, giving
15:22
us criticism, we want to like, push back with it.
15:26
But now, I mean, and that concept that we were talking
15:29
about is like, if someone gives me criticism, I'm like, Oh yeah,
15:32
it's like agreeing with it. Oh yeah, I can be like that
15:35
sometime. Yeah.
15:37
But at the same time, I also have to tell myself, but in this
15:41
instance, maybe I wasn't. In this instance, I did have the
15:45
best intentions in mind. But I do understand how it could
15:48
look like that. So I do agree with you.
15:50
So it's like agreeing with you, agreeing with them, but also
15:54
asking yourself like in this instance, was I really truly
15:58
doing that? And then getting really clear
16:01
for yourself. And I think like that's where we
16:03
kept taking you back when you did get criticism or there were
16:06
arguments, it's like were, was that your intention?
16:10
If it was not, then how do we be OK with them allowing them to
16:15
feel that way with for you about you because that's their
16:19
opinion. And also, how do you feel good
16:20
about yourself too despite them? Yeah.
16:25
So as you said, the main thing is never lose yourself and never
16:33
lose what you are thinking is the best for yourself as a nurse
16:39
or as a medical technician and never forget the patient.
16:44
All we are doing in this field is we are trying to make the
16:48
patient feel better because they are seeking our help.
16:52
And if we are not feeling good enough in what we are doing, so
16:58
how can we make the better treatment for the patient?
17:04
So never, never try to, you know, make a bad atmosphere in
17:12
front of the patient with other colleagues.
17:14
But you do not have to lower yourself as a specialist as
17:18
well. And if you're feeling not good
17:22
enough after your shift, I think the best decision is to relive
17:29
that whole moment and try to understand what made you feel
17:33
uncomfortable at the moment and what can you do differently at
17:38
the next time. Yeah, I love that.
17:40
We did that a lot, right? Like I I call it evaluations
17:43
where it's like what went really well because our brain wants to
17:46
go to what didn't go well. And we just like ruminate on
17:48
that. So we always talk about like
17:50
what went well, OK, what didn't go well and what do you want to
17:53
do differently? And I just like, I know there
17:55
was uncomfortable situations where I just made you be very
17:58
specific, but evaluating just helps us show up, like thinking
18:05
critically about what happened and do it differently next time.
18:09
Yes, totally correct. Yeah.
18:11
So my question for you is, like after utilizing coaching and
18:16
working together, how has this helped you with your challenge
18:19
of being the advanced practice nurse in the ER, right?
18:23
Like it hasn't gone away like you still I'm sure have a lot of
18:27
run insurance and a lot of doubt, but how has that helped
18:29
you in this position? Well, first of all, I don't
18:35
react that pessimistically when other nurses try to question me
18:41
again. So what is the advanced practice
18:44
nursing? Why are you so different from
18:46
us? It's like, you know, they're
18:47
trying to bite me, but I'm just not letting them to do that at
18:52
the moment. I'm trying to explain calmly to
18:57
them what I can do, like other nurses cannot do, and try to
19:06
understand that it's a young speciality.
19:10
The patients, the medical staff, the other nurses, they do not
19:14
know what we can do because there is none, There is
19:18
literally none who can make a good example what we can do.
19:22
So it's just the start of the road and I'm just trying to chat
19:30
more with the doctors and try to understand what they are
19:35
thinking about advanced practice nursing, how they are seeing us
19:39
as a specialist, how they how they can think that we can help
19:44
them in the emergency department.
19:46
Maybe we can be more working with the therapeutics, we can
19:52
work with traumatologists, we can work on our own in triage
19:57
and etcetera, or we can go to the administrative corpus and
20:02
try to make some changes there. So it's a long road.
20:07
It's just a start. And just I'm just trying to
20:11
bring that topic more and more often just to understand what
20:16
other people. Are thinking and how I can help
20:20
to provide a better care for the patients in the emergency
20:23
department and what coaching helped me is when I get with the
20:29
criticism, I react differently. I do not think that I am not
20:34
good enough. I just understand that maybe
20:37
that person does not really understand what I am fucking at
20:42
the moment and maybe we need to chat with him another time and
20:46
just don't make assumptions that that person doesn't like me as a
20:51
person or as a specialist. Maybe he does not seem that this
20:55
specialty is quite fit at the moment.
20:58
So the main thing is just talking, talking more, more more
21:03
and loudly about advanced practice nurse and try
21:06
understanding what other people sees in US and how we can help
21:12
them. Yeah, I just like, I I just
21:15
remember from day one meeting you and just like I remember
21:18
even telling my husband, it is so cool to have someone who has
21:23
the courage to blaze this trail. Like I always think about Elon
21:30
Musk and I always think about 20 years ago, 1520 years ago when
21:34
he was like sitting in a boardroom of people and him
21:37
being like, I'm going to make an all electric car and everybody
21:41
just laughed at him and criticized him and mocked him
21:45
and look at him now. And I just think this is you
21:49
too. And like, I saw this from day
21:53
one. It's not gonna be easy.
21:55
And you're gonna have people mock you and criticize you.
21:58
But it's like the courage that you've been able to muster is
22:01
what you're gonna create for your country.
22:05
Yeah, and I remember that you were always telling me this
22:08
example, and I'm a perfectionist.
22:12
I like to doing things very quickly and I like to do things
22:16
good. So as I've said, I'm 26 years
22:19
old and before coaching, I already thought that I had to
22:24
achieve everything I have to achieve my career peak and I
22:29
have to work from there even better and better.
22:32
But after coaching, I understood that yeah, things cannot go so
22:36
smoothly and quickly. It needs time, it needs changes.
22:40
It needs changes in every level. It needs, it needs acceptance in
22:45
our people, in our medical staff.
22:48
So even if it will happen after 20 years, after 15 years, it
22:55
will be still a big achievement for my country and for all of
23:00
the nurses that are working in Lithuania, that some things are
23:04
changing and we're not going backwards, we're just going
23:08
straight forward, even if it's not that fast as I wanted to be.
23:13
Yeah. And you are heading that up like
23:16
you are making a difference. Trying to do that, yes.
23:21
And I think like, one question that I had for you as we were
23:24
talking about all this is, you know, I think some people come
23:27
to me and they're like, oh, I want to get confidence in my job
23:29
and my career. But they realize, like, that
23:32
seeps into the other parts of their life as well.
23:35
So I'm curious for you, as your confidence level has grown and
23:38
your acceptance of people's criticism has grown, have you
23:41
seen that in elements of your personal life too, helping you?
23:46
Yes. The main thing that's changed
23:48
from our coaching start is I was still living with my parents
23:55
because I do not have a really good financial status, but I
24:00
understood if I will continue living with them.
24:03
So I will be stuck for a really long time.
24:05
So I decided to move away with my partner and here I am living
24:11
on my own. And it's it's I have to say it's
24:15
really cool because I understood that I can feel that freedom
24:19
again that I was feeling a few years ago when I studied in
24:22
other city. So yeah, I just built my
24:26
confidence. Then I can live on my own.
24:28
And maybe moving to the other side of the city is just a
24:33
start. Maybe one day I will have a lot
24:36
more confidence and try moving abroad.
24:40
As we talked in coaching and what I understood more is try
24:48
not to do everything so quickly as you want to do.
24:54
As you taught me, you have to make some small steps.
24:57
You cannot go straight to the finish line without making those
25:01
small steps. So just moving away from my
25:04
parents is a small step for me going forward.
25:09
And maybe in the next step, we'll be finding some company or
25:12
some other hospital in other country, or maybe the other
25:15
small step will be changing something in the advanced
25:20
advanced practice nursing field in Lithuania.
25:23
I'm not sure because life is deciding that, but I'm just
25:26
trying to live right here at the moment.
25:29
And as you taught me, do not think about what's going to
25:33
happen after five years. Just try living here and now and
25:38
don't make these rash, rash decisions and do not make some
25:42
assumptions that you will regret later.
25:45
Awesome. Last question for you, is there
25:49
anything like in your career or in your life that someone's like
25:52
shared with you that's been really meaningful you and and
25:55
help you get to where you are now?
25:59
Yes. When I was in, when I was
26:03
studying my master's degree, I found one nurse.
26:08
She was my mentor. She's also working in the
26:11
emergency department, sadly, not in the same hospital as I'm
26:15
working, but I'm really grateful that I met her.
26:19
I when we met, we saw that we are, we are like the same, just
26:28
she's a lot of older and I'm the younger version of her.
26:32
And she saw me like a white sheet.
26:37
And she just told me do not make this mistake, do not make this
26:40
mistake. Do not do that.
26:42
Do not overwork because that's all of the mistakes that I have
26:46
done. And you're going straight up to
26:48
that road that I went, yeah. And she was a great mentor, she
26:54
taught me a lot of things. I'm really grateful to her.
26:57
And until this day, we have each other's contacts.
27:02
If we are feeling that we want to talk about something, chat
27:06
about something, we talk to each other.
27:09
I go to her ER, we make a call to each other and we still
27:15
trying to find how to make a better place for nurses to work
27:22
in Lithuania because she is also a teacher and master's degree of
27:28
advanced practice nursing and she is trying to make some real
27:35
really good changes for the emergency department nurses.
27:39
So I'm grateful that I met her. She told me that she also had a
27:43
really tough Rd. and it's not going to be easy for any of us
27:49
and I understood that. But as I'm seeing where she is
27:54
at the moment, I'm really proud of her and I really love her.
27:59
So if I will make this kind of progress and I will be not the
28:05
same as her, but but we we will have some similarities, I will
28:10
be very happy because I will achieve that that I always
28:14
wanted to achieve because I guess she is one of the best
28:18
nurses that I ever met in my entire life.
28:23
Wow. Like just, and this is what I
28:25
always tell people to like always have that mentor, right?
28:29
Like have that mentor, that coach of someone where you want
28:31
to be like that is the difference that it will make for
28:34
you. And I, just like you, should be
28:38
so proud of yourself for trailblazing this advanced
28:43
practice nurse in your country. Because.
28:47
This is going to be really meaningful not just now but for
28:50
nurses in the future. And I think like this isn't
28:54
something that we have our own struggles here in the States,
28:57
but for you to be able to trailblaze that and have the
29:00
courage to do that, I think is is just amazing.
29:05
Yeah. So as you've said, you just have
29:07
to not to make assumptions. If you make some kind of
29:11
mistake, if you're not achieve something so quickly as you
29:14
want, just do not give up. Try making some other plans, try
29:19
making some small steps to reach your goal.
29:23
And just, I know that the road can be sometimes very difficult
29:29
and you, you can make assumptions that you will fail,
29:34
but never let these thoughts come to your head because
29:38
everything is achievable if you really want to.
29:42
So even if you have to make some time to rest, take time to rest.
29:46
Do not make rest, rest. Oh my God, I'm not.
29:54
And just try making other plan. Maybe there's some kind of other
29:58
way to achieve your goal. And just never let your hands
30:01
down because as nurses, we can do anything we want.
30:06
We can achieve anything we want. Yeah, I love that.
30:08
Don't give up. I love that.
30:10
Thank you so much for being on. I feel like we had such a great
30:13
conversation. I hope it really motivates other
30:16
people and gives them the courage to move forward, even if
30:19
the path is hard. And I just have really enjoyed
30:23
this conversation, so thanks for being on today.
30:26
Thank you so much for you as well.
30:28
Bye. Goodbye.