Mentoring benefits - having a mentor
You are considering getting a mentor but you just want to know what benefits you should expect to see before you commit.
Well, you have come to the right page and there are a lot of benefits!
The top 6 benefits of having a mentor
1 - Improved mental health
I like to put the health benefits first when discussing mentoring benefits. This is especially important with the today's sharp focus on people's mental health and its degradation due to COVID and isolation, too much screen time and a whole range of things.
When you have a mentor the health benefits it brings are significant.
Connections
Latest research from Gallup shows that people are feeling lonelier and more isolated than ever before. As mentioned in the research, one way to reduce the feeling of self-isolation is to increase more human connections and this is where mentoring helps. Mentoring pairs you up with another human who is willing to spend time with you, listen to you and help you. It’s another human touch point.
"One way to reduce the feeling of self-isolation is to increase more human connections and this is where mentoring helps".
Confidence
Mentoring helps improve your self-confidence. As you go through this mentoring journey your mentor will help guide you to find your own solutions to your challenges. This helps you realise that you have the power and skills to solve your own problems which in turn moves increases your self-confidence and moves you to the next level.
Mental resilience
Mentoring can lower your levels of anxiety and strengthens your mental resilience. There has been a lot of talk around a person’s physical resilience, but mental resilience really is also a hot topic right now and mentoring is a great way to strengthen a person to the turbulence of today. A good mentor will take the time to listen to your challenges, ask questions and provide advice or draw on their own experiences. As mentoring is a journey, there are also plenty of opportunities to follow up rather than it just being a one-off discussion.
So the health benefits are significant on from mentoring and this alone should encourage you to give mentoring a go. But the benefits don’t stop there.
2 - Mentoring provides a safe space for discussions
Mentoring provides the mentee with a safe space to discuss issues without repercussions. In your workplace you may have a manager that is great to talk to and get advice from… but they are still your manager. There will be things that you want to share with them. For example, if you are unhappy in your role, you probably wouldn’t go to your manager to discuss this in detail because your manager has ultimate responsibility for the team and would have to act accordingly on that news.
The same issue with family and close friends, there might be things that you do not want to share with them.
Once you have developed a mutually relationship of trust and confidentiality with your mentor, mentoring can become the one place where you can fully be yourself. You can explain your fears and concerns you have with no fear of repercussions and no judgement. Your mentor is there with the intention to help you with zero bias.
"Your mentor is there with the intention to help you with zero bias".
3 - Mentoring improves your skills.
This is what most people think of when they think of mentoring. Mentoring can, and is, used to help a person learn the hard skills to do the job properly from someone more senior. “Taken under your wing” or “learning the ropes” are common phrases used here.
But mentoring is so much more than just learning the hard skills.
With mentoring, you'll see an improvement in both your soft skills as well as getting exposed to new ways of thinking and different perspectives. This could be the difference from you being stuck in your career to thriving and growing to the next level.
4 - Mentoring makes you more self-aware
You will gain a higher self-awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses through the mentoring process.
With mentoring there's a lot of self-reflection that comes with it. Throughout your journey your mentor will be asking you questions with some of them being quite challenging. This questioning gives you time to self-reflect; “Is this the best way I should be doing things? Could I do it better? Why am I always failing in this one area? Why did I succeed in this area?”.
After each mentoring meeting, you should give yourself time to do run this self-reflection as it will lead to an improvement in your awareness of your strengths and weaknesses.
5 - Mentoring increases your network
Having a mentor increases your network by one which is good. If you are part of a mentoring program, you now have the ability to increase your network even more.
One word of caution here. Do not expect that your mentor will share their network with you. This may happen in time but your mentor should take the lead in this and it is not expected. Some people look for a mentor solely to get access to a greater network of leaders etc. and that is the wrong approach.
6 - Mentoring helps your identify and achieve career goals
Mentoring helps you better identify your career goals… and then helps you achieve them. I have had several mentors to date, all at various stages of my career. With each one, we spent time working out what goals I was wanting because your goals change as your career evolves. I became wiser to what I wanted in my career at that specific time which allowed me to focus better.
Summing up
A study on mentoring showed that people who have a mentor are five times more likely to get a promotion. The study didn’t go into the details as to why but I think it's because of the combination of the benefits that are listed above.
Can you imagine how much better you will be if you have improved self-confidence, you have a better self-awareness of your strengths and weakness, you know what your career goals are and are learning the right skills to achieve them.
You would be unstoppable!
So why don’t you give mentoring a go, your future self will thank you for it.
How can I find a mentor?
If this is your next question then please visit The Mentoring Program for more details then click on finding a mentor to start the registration process. At Next Level Mentoring we help make finding a mentor as easy as possible so. We look forward to helping you.
