You are never going to make all the right decisions.
This is what I told myself as I typed the email to the director of my graduate nursing school to inform her that I was withdrawing from classes for the following semester… and the foreseeable future.
For years before this decision, I had imagined myself working in the medical field. As a junior in high school, I decided my goal was to attend medical school and one day take part in medical missions. From that time on, becoming a doctor guided all of my decisions. I studied biology with a pre-med track in college. During my freshman year, I gained early acceptance to a medical school in Pennsylvania. I “just” had to keep my grade-point average high while surviving classes like organic chemistry and physics and I was in.
Although I was really engaged in campus life and had an awesome group of friends, being the pre-med girl came with sacrifices – like waking up at 8 a.m. every Saturday to head to the library, skipping game nights to study for microbiology finals, and choosing to attend pre-med club events over girls nights.
During my senior year of college, things changed a little. I was dating this really amazing guy (my husband now!), and I gradually realized that I didn’t want to jeopardize my future with him by moving all the way to PA for medical school. I also discovered that there were other medical professions that I thought would suit my personality and interests better than being a medical doctor. I decided to withdraw from my medical school and focus on becoming a nurse practitioner.
After graduating from college in 2020, I applied to a graduate nursing program that was an intensive accelerated track – meaning I would earn a bachelor’s and master’s in nursing. I started classes online because of the pandemic, became a medical scribe at a doctor’s office, and I was on track for my medical career.
But something felt – off. I remember telling my mom that I felt like a circle trying to fit into a square space. After a couple of months, I was feeling discontented, concerned, stressed, uncertain, unfulfilled, etc. In my second semester, I approached one of my nursing skills professors to ask for advice.
When I told her honestly how I was feeling in the program, she was a really kind listener and gave me some good advice. But one thing she said haunted my thoughts when I considered my future in the program: “I’ve only known one other student who didn’t end up feeling content in nursing and secure in her calling as a nurse – and that was because her parents had made her attend.”
Uh oh. Was that – an expectation? Cue the mental spiral… “I’m not the kind of person who disappoints people. I meet expectations. I’m successful. If everyone else who started this program feels excited to be a nurse then there must be something wrong with the way I’m thinking about it. Maybe I’m just not trying hard enough. Maybe I’m just too anxious. After all, it’s not like I’m failing classes.”
For the rest of that semester, it seemed like I spent as much time making pro-con lists as I spent studying. I tried to logically work my way through the situation and smother the feeling in my gut that was telling me to leave the program.
This is probably when some of my friends gave me the piece of advice that used to make me so uncomfortable: “You can’t really go wrong no matter what you choose.”
WHAT? My perfectionist brain did not accept that. Of course there’s a right and a wrong choice. And I needed to make the “right” one.
As I pored over pro-con lists, prayed heartfelt and tearful prayers, and texted my long-distance fiancé almost constantly, I felt like I was going crazy. Every morning I would wake up thinking I had made a decision about what direction to take, and by lunchtime I was convinced I should run in the opposite way.
What was my problem? I was clearly so unhappy and unfulfilled in nursing school. Why couldn’t I just decide to leave the program and choose a different path?
For a long, long time I was terrified of making the wrong life decisions. What if I did something that wasn’t part of God’s “plan?” What was my calling? What was the big purpose of my life? After all, I had received a dozen cards at my high school graduation that quoted Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” The problem was, God knew the plans and I didn’t.
SO, wasn’t my job just to figure it all out and make the right choice?
What I finally had to accept at the end of that overwhelming, career-changing period of decision-making was that I am never going to make all the right decisions. If you’re a perfectionist like me, that’s something you should embrace. Repeat it to yourself over and over – when you brush your teeth, before you eat lunch, when you get ready for bed. It’s okay to remove some of that pressure.
Give yourself grace to make a mistake. You have permission to silence that hypercritical, perfectionist voice in your head.
You won’t always make the right decision. And sometimes, in life’s choices, there really isn’t a right and a wrong choice anyway. For example, if I had dropped my nursing program and later realized that it was a mistake – I still had the concrete option of re-enrolling.
But even more importantly, I realized that God’s love for me and God’s opinion of me wasn’t dependent on whether I worked in the medical field or found a job in which I felt more fulfilled. I couldn’t really go wrong because no matter what direction I went in, as long as I was being faithful to God’s word and asking for his guidance – he would be with me.
How about we focus on another verse I like even better from Jeremiah?
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:9
Making big life decisions since that time has involved a process of prayer, reflection, listening to my gut feelings, discussion with those who know me best, and honestly just looking for open doors.
In 2021, when I was willing to accept that I won’t always make the right decisions (and that I’m just not going to be perfect), I was able to hear a deep calling from God to go into ministry. Now, at 25 I am in the deaconess program at Concordia Seminary St. Louis, married to my patient and supportive husband, and expecting a baby! This is not where I ever thought I would be at this point, but I’m happier than I have been in years.
God loves you. He loves you with a vast, unending love that is beyond what we can even imagine. You are not going to disappoint him by making the wrong decision about a career change, where to attend college, whether to end a relationship, what house to buy, or whether to go back to school.
Give yourself grace, and don’t let perfectionism keep you paralyzed. God will use you wherever you go.