I am not embarrassed to say that I have taken this certification exam before and failed it.

Being a nurse for over 15 years and working in dozens of Emergency Departments, I thought I would pass this on the first try. That was not the case.

I am not a good test taker. Not because of anxiety, but rather, I struggle with differentiating real world clinical practice, from textbook.

So here I am, studying for this certification exam again, because I want it. I want to pass this exam and tell myself that I did it. However…

…if I fail again, I will celebrate as if I passed! Why? Because it is important to recognize the effort of trying.

The lesson here is that no matter how many times you fail or how much experience you have, we still have more to learn. We can’t fail to try, no matter how many times we fail.

I am grateful for the opportunity to study when there are so many people in the world that wish they had a school they could attend. I don’t take this for granted.

My hope is that we all reflect on the educational goals we want to achieve and focus on what steps we are putting in place to achieve that goal.

For me, it is sharing the fact that I have failed and will continue to fail at things in life, but recognizing it as an opportunity to share my failure with others in hopes of inspiring you all to at least take that first step towards your educational goal.