If you want to learn something well, try teaching it—Aristotle
As a career coach my clients often ask me about how to find a mentor to help them in their growth. Most professionals in need of mentoring have a one-sided view of what mentoring is: finding someone, who can help them grow and who can help them through their challenges.
They often forget that regardless of where they are in their growth path they can seek someone out to mentor and grow in the process, as they are seeking to find a mentor for themselves. I have many examples of clients who wanted to get specific help in certain areas that they had targeted for their own growth, who ended up helping themselves by actively mentoring someone in that very area. Offering to help someone in the area in which one wants to grow and mentoring them through their challenges is the best growth tool that there is, as the quote at the top famously reminds you. Not only did they surprise themselves in how effective they were in mentoring someone in an area relatively new for them, but their own curiosity and their ability to openly learn in real time allowed them to grow in that very area.
So, here is my guidance to those who are actively seeking a mentor for their growth:
- Define your area of growth and development need and identify someone who can be your mentor.
- As you navigate through the process of engaging in a mentoring relationship for yourself, open yourself to mentoring others.
- Reach out to someone and engage with them in a dialog that will allow you to become their mentor in an area in which you also want to grow or learn. Do not wait to mentor someone if you are not able to find yourself one.
- Even if you are not able to find a suitable mentor for yourself do not stop the reverse mentoring process and actively and confidently engage in a mentoring relationship.
- As you continue your engagement with your mentee you will learn how mentoring really works and also about the area in which you are mentoring.
Good luck!