6 tips on finding a mentor and making the best of the relationship.3 mins read

In a previous post, I shared my experience with mentorship. It has been a most pleasant one. I had some difficulties getting to the point I am at with mentorship so I thought to share some tips I have learnt so far. Because I like minimal work, I have chosen to combine finding a mentor and getting the best out of the relationship in a single post. The first point talks about what you can keep doing in the interim, the next 2 are on getting a mentor while the others are on making the best of the experience.

Be found doing…

One thing I think can improve a mentorship experience is if you are already doing something by the time you interact with a mentor. It shows pro-activeness and readiness to progress. It also is a pointer to the fact that your mentor won’t have to spoonfeed you. This can even make them more eager to agree to offer the guidance you seek. While a mentor is important for several reasons, they are not exactly a ‘silver bullet’ for success when you don’t put in the work on your part.

Asking someone to be your mentor straight up may not bode well.

In my experience, cold-messaging someone and straight up asking them to be your mentor is not the way to go. I had one person agree this way but the relationship we had could hardly be termed a mentoring one. Most others just politely declined from the get-go. I think it’s easier to ease into a mentoring relationship with someone you’ve had a bit of interaction with over time. This is different if it’s a formal mentorship program.

Mentorship can be formal or informal

In finding a mentor, there are 2 ways I know of – reaching out to a senior colleague you’ve had previous discussions with or going through a mentorship program. The programmed route is usually formal with a template to follow and timelines. This has its benefits as you have specific goals for each session. I shared my experience with this form in this YALI post. The other method is informal and I can say more personal. It helps to find a mentor who aligns with certain values you hold dear. You don’t have to agree on all topics though.

Also, it may be helpful to also have mentors on the same sex/gender as there are certain nuances that someone of the opposite sex may not be able to relate to. Informal relationships are usually longer, with sessions that may feel more like friendly conversations. While I don’t think there is one superior method, I think progressing to informal mentorship may have added benefits as your mentor watches your growth over the years and can offer better advice tailored to you.

You can have many mentors

I used to think you only need one mentor but I no longer think that’s true. I think having a number of mentors may not be a bad idea. Maybe the word ‘mentor’ is beginning to take on different meanings though. One advantage of having more than one mentor is the opportunity to get perspectives from more than one person. As much as mentors would like to be unbiased in offering advice, they are humans and so it is inevitable that they project some personal experience into what they offer. It is your duty to recognise this and act accordingly.

Your mentor is to guide you, not pick for you.

Or dictate how your life should go. While it is to take advise from a mentor, it is also possible to do something different from what they suggest. A good mentor should have no issues with this as your life is your life and not an extension of theirs. You also should not rely solely on your mentor to decide what steps to take. A mentor is there to guide you but ultimately, decisions are yours and you should be ready to bear whatever consequences come with them – good or bad.

You can get mentored from afar

Don’t have a personal mentor? No worries because you can be mentored from afar. While I think having a mentor you can interact with beyond books or posts is important, it is not completely out of place to still have distant mentors. There are so many great people in the world doing so many great things. We cannot get to meet them all or ask them to mentor us. Even if we could, it’s impossible for them to do so. This is where interacting with their books, posts and other content helps. You will be amazed at how much you can learn from a person by simply reading their biography.

Extra tip – Don’t run away

This may sound funny but I ran away from my first ever mentor. I had been given an assignment to carry out before our next meeting. I then fell sick and couldn’t complete it. Instead of communicating this, I just didn’t reach out again. A mentoring relationship is mostly driven by the mentee (as you are one who needs it more), so when I didn’t reach out my mentor also didn’t. Weeks turned to months then years and it just felt too awkward and fell apart. Decided to share this too because it’s easy to want a mentor. But beyond wanting and getting one, you have to put in the work to sustain the relationship and get the best of it.

Are you looking to get a mentor to advance your career? These tips will help you in your search, and also make the best of the relationship. Click To Tweet

Another additional tip– While mentors are typically more experienced, older individuals, mentorship can also be sideways, that is you can get mentored by your peers on the same career level as you are. This can come in handy because way older people may be disconnected from the realities of work from when they were younger + the industry could be vastly different from what it was during their time.

Here’s a summary of all the listed tips:

• Be found doing
• Asking someone to be your mentor straight up may not bud well
• Mentorship can be formal or informal
• You can have many mentors
• Your mentor is to guide you, not pick for you
• You can get mentored from afar
• Don’t run away
• Peer-to-peer/sideways mentoring works too!

That’s all I have for now. I hope this post was helpful in some way. I don’t mind getting some mentorship tips from you as well. Please share if you have any.