How Having a Mentor Can Help you Excel

Being mentored is a fantastic way to learn key skills and knowledge, all from a more experienced professional. It is a key way to support your development as it helps you to learn and grow whilst simultaneously improving your mental health, reducing those feelings of isolation, and most importantly helping you to feel valued and inspired!

How does Mentoring Work?

In order for mentoring to be successful, knowing what you want to achieve or having a goal in mind is vital. Therefore taking that time to self-reflect and plan is absolutely key.

Identifying a mentor who meets your needs is important, whilst they don’t have to be in your profession or field, they’ll need to have the relevant skills and knowledge to draw on. Some organisations and professional bodies have mentoring schemes set up, so register for these and get started. Or you can ask within your organisation for recommendations and approach them yourself.

Your mentor will then draw on their first-hand experience, knowledge and insights so they can provide concrete guidance and advice to you. Your mentor will also motivate you, inspire you, and encourage you throughout all mentoring meetings so expect it to be directive and development driven.

Mentoring can be both a long term or short term commitment depending on your preference, so it’s important that you meet regularly and see it through to the end.

Time to Excel!

You will gain so much from being mentored and the fantastic thing is that mentoring will provide benefits both inside and outside your career:

• Having a mentor in the first instance means that you will grow your network, you’ll be able to increase your exposure and visibility all through connections you can make with and through your mentor.
• If you feel that you’re not represented at the senior levels of your organisation, mentoring can give you the skills and visibility to encourage you into those leadership roles.
• Mentoring will give you the chance to improve your goal-setting skills and learn to self-reflect; both of which are crucial to your career progression and will lead to increased self-awareness.
• A key part of the mentoring process is giving and receiving feedback, mentoring can help you to develop your relationship with feedback in a productive way.
• You will increase your self confidence through exposure to new perspectives as well as different ways of thinking or problem solving; all whilst being supported and advocated for.
• It is vital that you ask good questions throughout the mentoring process so you make the most of your time; all of which will help you to develop strong communication skills. You’ll improve your ability to share ideas comfortably and stand up for yourself in a challenging situation.
• Learning from your mentor’s experiences will provide you with real insights into those key skills for progression, all helping you to become a premium brand within your organisation

All of these can lead to an increased chance of promotion and job satisfaction! Those who receive mentoring are likely to be promoted five times more often than those who don’t have mentors.

Mentoring can be so powerful, so really make the most of the opportunity and start the process of being mentored!