Mentoring is essential to reach your goals
The importance of mentoring - is it obvious?
It all started with my friend who was looking for a mentor and I helped him search. After asking three of my acquaintances for their mentoring and getting the same surprised reaction of “Mentoring? What does it include?”, I understood that this subject is not talked about enough.
The reason my friend was looking for a mentor was that he saw how I was blooming with mine.
Mentoring? What does it include?
I define a mentor as “someone who is willing to give you advice”. This is someone who reached a goal that you aim for and is kind enough to both show you the right direction and support you when you struggle.
A while ago, there was a column written by Ra’anan Shaked in the newspaper that was talking about our need to hear from professionals (nutritionist, in his case) what we already know, and how stupid it is. Allegedly, he is right. Yes, I know what needs to be done, but sometimes I do need to hear it externally.
Sometimes I forget that it is a process and that good things take time.
Sometimes I need a reminder that it is supposed to be challenging and that I’m doing great.
Sometimes I need to hear an external opinion that doesn’t take feelings and insecurities into consideration.
And most importantly — sometimes someone has been there before you and learned a lesson worth sharing.
The first time I called someone “my mentor”
I remember that time I was talking to my friend and we excitedly realized that we both were familiar with this small community of Israeli Female software developers — BAOT. I knew them because I went to their technical writing workshop (the reason why we are all here today ;)), and she was participating in their mentoring program. She was sharing her job search journey with me and every time she mentioned her mentor it always started with “my amazing”, and she wasn’t the only one. When I talked with the head of the program, she also talked thankfully about her mentor and called her amazing! She used the same adjective! When she asked me what exactly I was looking for, I told her I wanted a mentor who I would also describe as amazing (and spoiler alert: she found me one :) )
It’s a cycle:
Besides the mentor searching I talked about in the beginning, there was another event that is worth mentioning. Someone sent me a message on Facebook asking for my advice on blogging. It’s funny because three months prior I was doing the exact same thing. I was reaching out to someone I hadn’t even met in real life and who was still kind enough to talk to me and give me direction. Being in a position where someone sees your achievements as their goal is very flattering, and it is a vivid proof of how much you’ve progressed. After helping him I did the most natural thing — told my writing mentor about it! :D
More than that, suddenly I realized that the guy who was asking for my advice in writing is the perfect candidate to mentor my friend! That is what is great about it: we are all good at something and we all want to get better at something, which makes a pretty cool cycle :).
About my mentors:
This year I defined for myself too many goals. These goals seemed hard to reach because I didn’t know where to start, I was giving up easily, getting embarrassed or afraid. Things just seemed too far from reach. This is the part where I show off MY AMAZING MENTORS:
I NEVER thought I’d be the one to exercise DAILY and to actually love it! If I’d tried to do this by myself, I would have probably given up quickly. My trainer got me to this stage with baby steps, patience, cheering and pushing me when needed. I always said that my goal was that people will know I’m working out just by looking at me, and yesterday I reached my goal!
I already mentioned my writing mentor, who was even sweet enough to let me know that he noticed my progress and give me great tips without me asking. I was very happy to know he also reads my publications on my blog even though it isn’t his field of profession.
Now we got to my amazing mentor from BAOT. She is super sweet, and I’m still surprised by how eager she is to mentor me even with our time differences and busy schedules. The conflict between how professional and got-it-all-figured-out she is, and how she seems to understand every concern and fear I have is beyond me.
Last but surely not least — my mentors from work. After participating in an only-women engineering conference I came to the conclusion that I NEED women engineers in my life (considering that my environment is very male dominant) and that there are struggles I face that I don’t think my colleagues could relate to. This is why my mentors from work are so important to me. These are two inspiring women in two different stages of their careers. Of course, I consider them my close friends, I just think that calling them that will not emphasize how much I value their opinion.
To conclude:
I think the last section was pretty convincing. I can’t understand how someone can read this fangirling and not want to join this cycle. Helping others is fun. Having someone that cares about you and your success is fun. Both sides of the mentoring are very empowering, and I highly suggest you will give it a try.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article and found it useful. I would love to hear your thoughts, here in the comments or in a private message:
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