As nursing continues to grapple with burnout, retention challenges, and increased scrutiny, many nurses are questioning not only where they work but also whether their roles truly align with who they are. Career satisfaction, mental well-being, and sustainability have become central concerns shaping the profession’s future.
Finding the right nursing career fit means aligning a nurse’s strengths, values, stress tolerance, and stage of life with the work environment, specialty, and leadership culture where they practice. When that alignment is missing, nurses may experience chronic stress, declining confidence, and burnout. When the fit is right, even demanding roles feel purposeful, sustainable, and professionally fulfilling.
For Dr. Dayna Scott Vidal, that reality became the catalyst for her book, Find Your Fit: A Nurse’s Guide to Choosing the Right Unit.
“For a few years, I have believed that nursing is at a crossroads,” Vidal explains. “And as evidenced by recent events where it feels as though the nursing profession is under so much scrutiny, my belief has been reinforced even more in 2025.”
A Book Written for Nurses Who Feel Lost or Misaligned
Vidal wrote Find Your Fit: A Nurse’s Guide to Choosing the Right Unit for nurses who feel overwhelmed, confused, or emotionally exhausted by the growing pressures and choices within the profession. Burnout and compassion fatigue, she notes, are realities throughout healthcare, particularly for nurses.
“I wrote Find Your Fit for nurses who feel lost or confused about all of the various career paths in nursing,” she says. “Find Your Fit was meant to show that we all struggle, that there are specialties that exist, and that it is important for nurses to find their right fit before burnout and emotional exhaustion take hold.”
Rather than offering a rigid career roadmap, the book encourages nurses to pause, reflect, and consider alignment before reaching a breaking point.
More Than Pages and Print
Vidal has described the book as “more than pages and print,” reflecting the deeply personal nature of the stories it contains. Many of the narratives come from her own experiences, nurses she worked with directly, or nurses she interviewed whose stories closely mirrored her own.
“These stories are real,” she says. “They embody the Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful parts of nursing. I hope that the challenges and triumphs of these nurses leap from the page in a way that shows the human connection nurses have with each other and all of humanity.”
The stories were chosen intentionally to highlight recognition rather than perfection. Vidal wanted nurses to see themselves in others’ experiences and to understand that struggle does not equal failure.
“I wanted readers to see themselves on the page and realize they’re not broken. They may be misaligned,” she explains.
Why Self-Reflection Is the Foundation of Career Fit
At the core of Find Your Fit is the belief that meaningful career decisions must begin with self-reflection. Vidal emphasizes that without understanding how one processes stress, what drains energy, and what supports growth, nurses risk repeating the same challenges across different roles or organizations.
“Before you can choose the right unit, specialty, or role, you have to know yourself,” she says. “What drains you? What lights you up? What kind of pace, autonomy, and support do you need to thrive?”
Without reflection, she adds, “nurses keep recycling the same pain in different buildings.” With it, nurses begin responding and planning instead of reacting.
Aligning Strengths With the Right Environment
To support that process, Vidal incorporates several personality and behavioral frameworks in the book, including Myers-Briggs, DiSC, and OCEAN. These tools help nurses identify energy patterns, communication styles, tolerance for chaos, need for structure, and values around teamwork and leadership.
“I walk nurses through identifying their energy patterns, communication style, tolerance for chaos, need for structure, and values around teamwork and leadership,” she says. “Then we map those traits to environments where they’re assets, not liabilities.”
She describes this as strengths-based nursing in practice, encouraging nurses to start where they naturally excel rather than forcing themselves into environments that do not support them.
Reframing Fear, Guilt, and Burnout
When nurses struggle to find their fit, Vidal says the most common barriers are fear, guilt, and the belief that struggling means incompetence.
“Nurses are afraid to leave, afraid to be judged, afraid they wasted their degree,” she says.
Find Your Fit works to reframe those beliefs by helping nurses assess their situations objectively, advocate for themselves, and pivot without burning bridges or burning out.
The book also helps nurses distinguish between normal job strain and deeper misalignment. “Normal strain feels hard but purposeful,” Vidal explains. “You’re tired, but you’re growing. Mismatch feels like erosion. Your confidence shrinks. Your body stays in fight-or-flight.”
Leadership, Culture, and Systemic Realities
While the book focuses on individual choice, Vidal does not ignore the role of leadership and organizational culture. She acknowledges toxic leadership and unsafe practices as contributors to burnout, even if addressing them directly falls outside the book’s scope.
“The book is a guide for nurses that focuses on individual choices,” she says. “While I do mention toxic leadership, unsafe practices, and other systemic issues that impact the work environment, I do not address specific strategies to address those elements.”
Those conversations, she notes, continue through her professional content on social platforms.
Her own experiences working under different leadership styles shaped her perspective. “I’ve worked under leaders who grew nurses and leaders who crushed spirits,” she says. “The difference wasn’t talent. It was culture.”
What Organizations Must Do Better
Beyond individual decision-making, Vidal believes healthcare organizations have a responsibility to support nurses in finding roles where they can thrive.
“Organizations need to stop treating nurses as interchangeable labor,” she says. “That means honest job previews, flexible pathways, supportive onboarding, and leadership development rooted in emotional intelligence.”
Fit, she emphasizes, is not optional. “It’s a retention strategy and a patient safety issue.”
Who the Book Is For and Why It Matters
Vidal identifies three core audiences for Find Your Fit: new graduates who feel overwhelmed, experienced nurses who feel stuck, and leaders who want to stop losing good people.
For nurses at every stage, she underscores one central message. “For all the financial, time, and emotional investment into the career, take a fraction of that time to figure out your next move.”
Early Impact and Looking Ahead
The feedback that has resonated most with Vidal has come from nurses who experienced a shift in perspective after reading the book.
“The messages that hit hardest are the ones that say, ‘I thought I was the problem.’ Now I see I just needed a different environment,” she says. “That shift alone changes lives.”
Looking ahead, Vidal hopes the profession moves toward intentional career mobility rather than desperation-driven decisions. She envisions stronger leadership, fewer nurses leaving the profession altogether, and renewed respect for nursing.
“I hope that the profession regains the respect it has always deserved,” she says.
As she continues to grow her career coaching work, Vidal is also considering future projects focused on leadership development, confidence-building earlier in nursing education, and deeper support for nurses navigating transitions, including the possibility of a follow-up book.
