The Pyramid of Success

It takes some planning and forethought to achieve your goals. Success is not an accident; it is the result of setting goals and taking appropriate action to achieve those goals. The Ed4nurses Pyramid of Success can help you to achieve your goals.

Intuition

Did you ever feel like something “just wasn’t right with your patient?” We often call this intuition. In most cases it isn’t an intuitive thought, but rather an assessment that we are unprepared to classify and identify. It is difficult to get appropriate treatment for a patient if the nurse calls the physician and says “he just doesn’t look right.”
The problem is you may have identified assessment findings that you don’t know how to classify. The good news is that you can correct this. But, first a little history on how it began.
Upon graduation from nursing school, nurses often feel like they’ve completed their education. The only thing left to do is to “learn on the job” and “stay up-to-date” using occasional continuing education. Learning rarely works like that.
In order to understand (not memorize) a concept, you must have life experiences to integrate with it. That’s why we use clinical rotations during school. Life experiences give you a way to store or file away concepts until you encounter them again.
When we say “he doesn’t look right,” we are really saying “I know there’s something wrong, but I can’t find where I stored that information.” It’s like having a lost file on your computer; it's there somewhere but you have no idea how to find it.

Real Understanding

In order to fully integrate concepts related to nursing, most of us have to revisit physiology, and pathophysiology. Once you have work experience, you will have a way to classify that information and use it in your practice. Then you can build on the essential knowledge base and develop mastery of nursing. Once mastery is achieved, then tips and timesaver can be appropriately added.

Essentials

The Ed4nurses educational philosophy is illustrated by the pyramid of success. The bottom layer is the essentials of practice. Basic concepts, which when fully-integrated make a solid foundation for clinical practice. The Essentials programs take concepts that you have already learned and use them in different ways to help you classify the information. In this way, you will be looking for problems where you may not have previously. The Essentials programs are not nursing school revisited. They are high-level content intended to reinforce what you already know and introduce a broad range of material that is essential to your practice.

Mastery

The second level is mastery. Most nurses want to “master” their practice. This doesn’t happen from clinical experience alone. It is through the experience of planned education and clinical practice that mastery occurs. This is the emphasis of the Mastery programs – putting it all together.

Expert

After mastery is achieved, appropriate tips and timesavers can be implemented to maintain a high level of practice. Tips and timesavers make nursing care more effective. Too often, nurses try to implement expert strategies before mastery and end up achieving the wrong results. A firm foundation is necessary before fine tuning the practice.

3-D Pyramid

A pyramid is three-dimensional. A one-dimensional pyramid is merely a triangle that won’t stand up on its own. Career development and success are based on turning your triangle into a three-dimensional pyramid.
For example, once you have mastered orthopedic nursing you have developed a triangle. In order to achieve success, you must “flesh out” your triangle into a pyramid. This means adding mastery in other areas: cardiac, respiratory, pediatrics, etc. Once you have mastered the second area you have two triangles, that when put together look like the trees kids make in art class.
More “fleshing out” has to occur to form a pyramid. Other areas of life must be mastered. This doesn’t mean that you have to master all areas of nursing, just other areas of life. Child-rearing could be one, auto mechanics could be another, and spiritual growth could be another. Mastering only one or two areas of life is rarely fulfilling.

Our Definition of Success

Success occurs when intellectual, physical, and spiritual growth are sought in an organized and continuous fashion, with the intent of helping other people. Success is not selfish, nor is it an end in itself. Success is not monetary, although money will come to the successful person.
Rather, success is the end product of rigorous self-improvement with the intent of being of service to others. Success can be achieved by setting goals, and working to achieve them.