Basic Qualities Of Care Givers!
In this article, I would like to focus on an offline job and that is the basic qualities of care givers! In the true sense of the word, a care giver’s job is very much an offline job, and more ‘hands on’! However, there are also certain online requirements involved. Not to negate the essence of the job, there are certain vital skills and qualities that anyone choosing to work in this capacity, they will certainly need to have.
This contributed article is here to highlight a few of the more basic and definitely ‘essential’ qualities of a care giver. What are your qualities? Do you think that this could be a job for you in the offline world? Read on.
The Vital Skills & Admirable Qualities Of Care Workers
If you consider yourself to be especially adept at caring for others, then you might well have thought about taking up a career in some kind of care work position. There is a huge range of these kinds of jobs out there, and actually, this is one area of work in particular where the demand tends to be always high.
But don’t let this make you think that those in this kind of work do not enjoy it; a lot of care givers say that it is extremely rewarding, and indeed it consistently ranks highly in the lists of job satisfaction levels. Therefore, this could actually be the perfect career for someone with the right skills and qualities – but what are those, exactly?
In this article, we are going to take a look at some basic qualities of care givers and of those which you might need in order to succeed in this field of work. Do you have what it takes?
Compassion
Probably the most vital quality of all the basic qualities of care givers, is compassion. If you don’t have this, it is very likely that you can’t really do this kind of work at all. It might seem as though compassion is either something you have or don’t have, but the truth is that like anything else it can be taught or learned.
If you want to get into this kind of work but you don’t think you have enough compassion at present, there are age-old practices you can utilize to help you improve this aspect of yourself.
For instance, you can practice compassion meditation, which focuses on building compassionate thoughts around people you know – and even people you don’t know or feel ambivalent towards. These practices are simple, but deceptive in how powerful they can truly be.
Similarly, you can develop compassion through the actual act of caring for another, and that is worth remembering if you are not sure whether you are made of the right stuff for this kind of job.
Once you start working with and caring for people, you will find that you automatically start developing compassion, and this is likely to be a virtuous cycle which grows and grows over time.
Nobody is devoid of compassion; it’s just that some people need to spend a little time developing their own innate ability to be compassionate, which can take more time for some than for others.
Kindness
Although closely related to compassion, and although the two often go hand-in-hand, kindness and compassion are actually two different qualities altogether.
Compassion might be described as having the ability to give care selflessly to those in need, whereas kindness is more akin to being able to give freely in general.
Although kindness is not necessarily a prerequisite for a care position, it is true that most carers tend to be kind at heart. If you are already kind, you might not even know it, as it is generally true that those who are kind-hearted fail to see it in themselves.
Therefore, for this kind of quality, it can be useful to ask the people you know – your friends and close family in particular – whether they think that you are kind to others. If they do think so, you will be able to know that you have this quality and take it forward with you into your new career in care. If not, you might want to work on developing your kindness – in whatever way you can. As it happens, it’s not too hard to do so.
For a start, you might want to start practicing giving selflessly to those close to you. Once you have become comfortable with that, you can then think about extending the circle of your kindness and beginning to give to those less familiar to you – or even to those you don’t know at all.
This could mean giving to charity, to the homeless, or even to animals. Whatever it is, it is the same quality of heart that drives it, and the more you practice is, the stronger it becomes in you. Going to your new care job with this quality is likely to help a great deal, so it is definitely worth spending some time with these kinds of practices. In time, you will find you are automatically kind, and it helps with any kind of care work to be so.
Confidence
It does require a certain kind of confidence to be able to care for others in their time of need. If you lack this kind of inner self-belief, it can mean that you actually don’t always do what is best at the right moment. This can make a huge difference to how you succeed or not at work, so it is definitely something to look into developing if you feel you lack it at present.
The truth is that confidence is a hugely important quality for those wishing to work in a care position. When you lack confidence, it means that you might not take the initiative when it is necessary – which in the worst case scenario, could actually be disastrous.
There is another good reason to focus on developing confidence in yourself if you are getting into care work. The more confident you are, the more likely it is that your clients will feel comfortable in your presence – which makes a world of difference when you are providing consistent care to the same clients every day.
You first have to learn to respect yourself if you want others to respect you too, so make sure that you focus on this early on in your career. You will find that it really does make a huge difference in your ability to care for others – and helps you to feel more capable in your role too.
Confidence can be built and developed in anyone, so don’t worry if you don’t feel that you are currently very confident. Actually, the ability to be confident is something you can learn just by faking it till you make it.
You can even practice confidence-boosting exercises at home such as the famous ‘wonder woman pose’. These things, though they might seem silly, can actually bring about fast and powerful results, and are absolutely worth considering if you want to get ahead in your care career.
Basic First Aid Skills
Of course, it’s not just the personal qualities that matter here, but some of the most important things are the actual specific skills you might need as well. Certain skills are absolutely unavoidable if you are to be working in any kind of care position – and one that immediately comes to mind is first aid.
As long as you are well versed in first aid, CPR and everything else of this kind, you will have more confidence to bring to your role, and your clients will feel they can have more trust in you as well. It is highly likely that whatever employer you end up with will train you in these areas, but you can get ahead and make it more likely to be hired or promoted by learning them first and foremost.
This will mean that your new employer won’t have to train you, which will save them time and money – something they will definitely appreciate. You can learn First Aid and CPR easily these days, even by getting a CPR certification online, so there is no reason not to do so before you start applying for work.
Patience
Patience might well be considered both a skill and a quality, and as such, it is one of the single most important things you can have if you are to be the best care worker you can be. Undoubtedly, patience is one of the basic qualities of care givers. If you feel that you might need to work on your patience, then the good news is that there are many ways of doing so.
One of the best is to remind yourself of the basic reasons for being patient.
In the care situation, this could be that you need to remember that your client cannot be any other way, and once again we see how important compassion is in learning to do the right thing.
If you display a lack of patience too often in this kind of work, it can have detrimental effects, so try your hardest not to let this happen too often. But remember that everyone loses their patience from time to time, and not to beat yourself up too much if you do it just once or twice in a blue moon.
Bedside Manners
Famously, many doctors lack this very thing, and it is often one of the main problems that patients have when they are in care. If you have a good bedside manner, it will put you ahead of the rest in no time, so this is definitely worth developing if you feel you need to do so for yourself.
It is mostly just a case of being friendly and polite to the people you are caring for, which is easy enough if you just remind yourself of their basic human nature and that they are in an unenviable position. From time to time, you might let this slip – but stay the course, and on the whole, you should manage to keep it going strong. This will help to foster your career, and to help your patients and clients too.
My Final Thoughts On Basic Qualities Of Care Givers!
Caring for anyone is in itself a commendable act. Being compensated for such as act is something that should be done if needed, and more so, for a job well done. It is not easy at times. With the various issues that can occur, you need to know that anyone you may choose to hire for this job is indeed equipped with the basic qualities of care givers as a starting point.
You want to ensure that whoever you need to provide care for, will indeed be in ‘good hands’ in more ways than one. Some people are ‘born care givers’ by nature, while others are ‘cultivated’ in the basic qualities of care givers. In both cases, you want to be able to ‘rest at ease’ knowing that all will be well.
I hope this article provided some peace of mind and information on the basic qualities of care givers, especially if you find yourself wanting to venture out into another field of interest.
All the best.
Images courtesy of Pixabay, Flickr, PxHere, and Pexels.
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