Choose a Mentor
Highly Effective Work Habits: Choose a Mentor
No matter what your position at your company (unless you are the CEO), make sure you select a mentor. This is someone you look up to that you can learn from. This could be someone in the same department who has a similar position you want to eventually grow into or someone who simply has work ethics that you admire. Ideally, though, you’ll want someone who is on a similar career track and who shares your goals. This should also be a person who you think is trustworthy and has your best interests at heart. This person should also be successful. Duh. Why follow after someone who lacks experience or doesn’t have their act together?
Once you have chosen a mentor, approach and ask if they are ok with this. You’ll want to make sure the mentor has time for you. A mentor should be available for questions, career advice, training, and anything else you might need that can help you be successful over time. In some companies, choosing a mentor is required. In these cases, a mentor is often judged based upon the success of his/her mentoree.
Make sure you touch base with your mentor on a regular basis and solicit feedback. How have you been improving? Are you meeting his/her expectations? If not, work with your mentor to plan out a strategy and re-evaluate your goals. If you have chosen a good mentor, they should be giving you candid, honest feedback on your work.
And, if you are in a situation where choosing a mentor at work is not possible or practical, then try and model yourself after someone in the industry that you admire. See if that person has a blog or anything else that you can follow for career advice.
Having a mentor is not a sign of weakness, but rather just the opposite. I’ve said this before – no one is perfect. We could all use a little help improving something about ourselves and it takes strength to admit this to yourself and seek some assistance. So, having a mentor is always a good thing.
The content on what you’ve shared is very inspiring. Though we are a CEO or a regular employee, we still need to have a mentor that will guide as in our every endeavor. They are the one with the expertise and needless to say have the idea compared to us. It is a good thing that we have a guide.