What a question huh? Is what you are doing stressful or is it your passion? I know that I had personal struggles with this right after I graduated. I wanted to do all the things and be a part of every single group I could get my hands on... I was definitely over ambitious. I still have a lot of things that I am really interested in being a part of, but some of them are things that would just cause me stress. I'm learning that I need to devote my time to the things that I truly love so that I continue to work with passion.
Case in point; I had a coordinator during my internship that was on numerous committees within the hospital, volunteered with community organizations, and then was obviously involved with shepherding new child life students. What I learned from this specialist is that there is a big need to learn how to say no as a Child Life Specialist. It is important to expand beyond your area of clinical work, but not at the cost of loosing sight of why you started in the first place.
In my own work I know that I am passionate about supporting students, providing grief/bereavement services, and advocating for child life in traumas. I have taken on extra presentations and committee meetings revolving around these things because none of it actually feels like work to me. I know that with these things I put my best work out there and I am excited about sharing what I have learned. If I were asked to work on something for, say radiology, I know that it would cause me a lot of stress until it was over. I still need to learn how to say no, but that's hard when you're newish and even harder when you want to be a team player. What are you passionate about?
-K
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