I advocate for healthy growth and I try educate people about what it is. To my surprise, many are not familiar with the concept although I might have to write on health growth soon, I’ll just briefly explain what it is now because it relate to the topic of this article. To put it simply, healthy growth is a progressive type of growth. It emphasizes on starting something at your barest minimum and the gradually improving. Now back to the main topic.
According to the online oxford languages, “ a mentor is an experienced person who advises and helps somebody with less experience over a period of time“ they advise or train someone especially a younger colleague. And NO! Your role model is not your mentor.
the presence of mentors is very important in the lives of people especially those looking to pursue a career. Here are some reasons why you need mentors;
Pool of experience
There is a common saying that “experience is the best teacher” but this saying can sometimes be misinterpreted. It doesn’t literally mean that you have to experience something yourself before you can learn from it.
You can also pull from the pool of experience of other people and this is where mentors come in. Say for instance you are looking to acquire a particular a particular skill, you’d learn that skill better with the help of a mentor or coach. I have had times when I was stuck on errors while I was learning programming with python. Sometimes, I’d browse the internet for solutions but to no avail but I found out later that I was approaching things the wrong way, so I decided to join my school developer’s club and they have been helpful since joined. I also got to me few people who coached me on one or two things. Generally, fixing errors became easier for me. It is good to want to learn something on your own sometimes, but things will be easier if you have a guide - A Mentor.
Unbiased opinion
whenever you need a piece of advice, your mentor should be your go to shop the opinion of mentors are usually not clouded as they truly want the best for you more often than not, the advice received from family and friends are usually diluted with lit bits of feelings and emotions because they have a high level of emotional attachment to you. A mentor’s opinion of your work is more of what you really need than what they feel you need.
Constructive criticism
A mentor is usually your best critic. They are able to identify your strength as well as your weaknesses and help you work on them. You can always trust your mentor(s) to give you feedbacks and reviews after proper analysis of your work and, provide specific analytic suggestions. Also they have been where you are so they are the best people to proffer logical solutions to any problem you might be facing
They will give you healthy tips
Because of the level of experience that comes with being a mentor, a mentor can help you work around things fast by sharing how they did it and how they think you can do it. They also help to relieve you of stress that you would have otherwise encountered should you do it on your own
Motivation
A mentor is the best person to motivate you because of the level of trust you have in them. When a mentor tells you that you are really going well, you’d feel a certain level of satisfaction and happiness because you know such encouragement is genuine.
Connection
Mentors will most likely introduce you to their connections especially if they are proud of what you have been able to achieve through them.
Take for instance someone who is looking to pursue a particular career in the banking industry and has a bank manager as a mentor, the person is automatically exposed to various opportunities like internships, seminars and the likes
Final Notes
when choosing a mentor, try to choose someone with vast experience in the field you are looking to dive into, someone who is well respected and is well known in that particular field.
So if you are looking to start a business, pursue a new career, acquire a new skill and so on, the first step you should take is finding a mentor in the particular niche you are looking to verse into.
Happy reading!!
