If there is one thing that can be a game changer in a young man’s life, it’s getting the right mentorship at the right time. The age from 18-24 yrs. and at times beyond, is typically that of confusion and lack of proper decision making. Today, more than ever before, a young career seeker faces a myriad of choices and decisions in his/her daily life.
While there are opinions coming in from parents, relatives, friends, cousins, etc. – how many of these are informed opinions? Not many students in our country our fortunate enough to receive timely and well-meaning guidance from their teachers or professors. As a result, millions of youngsters in our country today are working far below their actual potential, doing jobs that are not even faintly related to their passion or interest area.
Let’s try to understand the many ways in which a proficient mentor can significantly add value to one’s career and professional life.
Know thyself: While this sounds so simple, the interesting fact is that we can spend entire lifetimes without even properly knowing ourselves. And how does the mentor help us do this? It’s by asking the right reflective questions.
The key to a successful mentorship relationship is the art of building a conversation and a very important part of that conversation is the use of relevant questions. Let’s take a few examples:
What motivates you the most?
What does an ideal career mean to you?
What are your biggest strengths?
What are your key improvement areas?
Who has been most influential in your life?
Gain the right perspective: Most of the wrong decisions in life are a result of unclear thinking, and in an age where we are bombarded by messaging from TV channels and social media platforms all the time, confusion is natural to occur. The right mentor can help you sort what really matters and help you, ignore what’s not relevant to you. When you are able to gain a clear perspective of your environment, your choices would automatically become better and more logical.
Unleash your true potential: As soon as you embark upon your professional career, you place yourself in direct competition to hundreds and thousands of individuals who may happen to share the same city, the same functional area or may be the same prospective employer.
The game is to always make efforts to be one up and be able to stand out from the competition. However how can you do so unless you have a crystal clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses? A mentor can offer you a 360-degree picture of your own self and help you accurately analyze your strengths as well as improvement areas.
Multidimensional approach: Getting ahead in your career is not just about the course that you take or the college that you attend. It is in fact about many important factors that include your health, emotional wellness, stress control, mental attitude etc.
It is therefore a well-known fact that the best mentorship relationship is not about telling someone what to do, it’s a lot about non-verbal communication, inspiration to improve one’s lifestyle, motivation to follow life goals, and about providing a sense of purpose to life.
So look around and identify a mentor for yourself early in your life so that your life becomes a guided journey and not something that happens by chance. It could be your old teacher, a friend, or even a distant relative. The only thing that matters is that is your mentor truly devoted and dedicated to your progress. Is he/she ready to invest quality time towards your mentorship? These are a few parameters through which you can identify the right mentor who can provide you the valuable sense of direction you need to do well in your career and life!
By: Sumeet Pal Singh, Content Professional
Disclaimer: Kindly note that above blog has been submitted by members in their individual capacity.
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