10 Reasons To Become A Mentor

Written by Molly Stout

When you imagine your idols and role models, you may sit in awe of the amazing things they are able to accomplish seemingly without much effort. You crave the same success, accolades, attention, recognition, or skills to move in the world as they do. Perhaps you have tried to embody their mindset or lifestyle in an attempt to live what you envision to be your best life. And then, maybe, you have realized it is not as simple as you initially thought. What would you give for the chance to spend a day with them and have them give you personal advice or answer all your questions, picking their brains for all the tips and tricks of their industry? As fantastic as this daydream may feel, if you think back to your earlier years, there are likely people to whom you would attribute your success and paved the way to the goals you have already accomplished today.

Besides those common mentorships–like parents and teachers–who guided you along your path in life, don’t downplay your unique personal experiences and talents that make you stand out from the crowd. All of this cumulative knowledge makes anyone a candidate to be a mentor themselves. Without the status of “expert” in your field, perhaps you haven’t considered the option of being a mentor. With a little bit of personal branding and marketing, you could definitely find a newbie in your field of knowledge to advise and train. If you are wondering if mentorship is for you, the following benefits of mentoring may assist you as you weigh your options.

Reason 1: Improve Self-Awareness and Self-Reflection

Mastery requires being able to see and understand subjects from multiple perspectives. Working in a bubble may have you functioning with blind-spots to ideas and enlightenment that could accelerate your progress. Putting yourself out there not only puts your skills to the test, but opens you to questions, critique, and criticism. But you will never know how good you are until you try. Through mentoring, you will be able to review and solidify your knowledge, and your true skill level will be verified by a measurable performance instead of over-confidence or insecurity. Knowing where you are will really give you a clear path forward.

Reason 2: Share Your Knowledge and Expertise

“Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.” ― Dalai Lama XIV. Teaching and mentoring is truly a lasting way to influence the world in the direction you personally desire. If you have been employed in more than one place, you know there are differences in how things are run and how incompetence really slows down the efforts of the whole organization. While some may feel that guarding their specialty knowledge keeps it valuable, spreading that knowledge ensures that it stays alive and is more standardized as a practice. Mentoring multiple people in your field could possibly make your knowledge more valuable because of its popularity.

Reason 3: Enhance Your Communication and Leadership Skills

As digitally connected as we are these days, it sometimes seems that communication skills are lacking. Mentorships are great tools to test and improve communication both for digital correspondence and also for face-to-face interactions. Teaching and advising roles require the ability to rephrase, improvise, break down concepts, deeply define terminology, come up with relatable analogies, and adjust pacing. In a position of leadership, you will also have to know how to inspire and give constructive feedback without belittling your mentee. Good leaders are invested in the success of those who follow them.

Reason 4: Strengthen Your Emotional Intelligence

A lot of your emotional intelligence strength will come from the skills we have already discussed so far: self-awareness, communicating well, and being a decisive leader. The additional factor that is added in this emotional intelligence is understanding how to recognize and regulate your own emotions as well as that of your mentee. As a leader, it is important to be level-headed even in frustrating situations, like maybe your student is not understanding a concept you would personally describe as simple and easy to understand. In this sort of situation, you not only keep your cool, but you also do not throw emotion out the window. It requires empathy to read how your mentee may be feeling about the situation and be encouraging and adapt advice to acknowledge how they might be feeling, but also how they can get through the challenge. It is not as easy as it sounds, but like other skills, it must be practiced to be improved.

Reason 5: Network and Connect with People

Sharing your expertise can greatly increase the respect between yourself and whoever you are sharing it with. They will appreciate your depth of knowledge, and you might decide that having someone take a similar interest as you makes for fun conversation. In this way, a mentee has the potential to become a friend or at the very least, a positive reference for networking in the future. Their word of mouth may help you find additional clients or maybe work opportunities. If you are seeking to become a mentor, this will also force you to expand your network naturally while looking for a client. Networking always brings about new and interesting people and opportunities.

Reason 6: Enhance Your Career Opportunities

All of the soft skills that come with practicing mentorship shine on a resume and are positive experiences to draw from during interviews. The work you put into mentoring is also work you are putting into putting your knowledge to practice. This counts as experience and validates you as someone knowledgeable in your field. Both mentors and mentees have an easier time being promoted in their careers because of the experience and relationships. You could be asked to start a mentorship program within your organization or hired as a third party from another organization. Maybe you find that you love teaching and start to pursue that path in your subject of expertise. The more you grow any skill, the more chances for opportunity.

Reason 7: Make a Lasting Impact on Someone’s Life

So, you have given the gift of knowledge to someone through mentorship. Their skills have grown and perhaps given them a shot at a new career or a promotion. You have raised their confidence and improved their trajectory to success. Inevitably, you have put yourself in the position of the people you are grateful to. You have put yourself one step closer to being like your role models because you had something to give that someone else could benefit from. They looked up to you and you are both better forever from the experience.

Reason 8: Help Combat Inequality

Often inequality and mentorship are mentioned together when speaking about under-served youth in need of adult mentors to help them with their unique struggles. However, in the workplace, having more equality when it comes to skills enables the organization to delegate more tasks and work more efficiently. This removes a “winner takes all” or competitive mindset and removes reliance on a single person. Mentorships help the upward mobility for all parties involved, so it won’t keep you as a mentor stagnant because you are offering a hand up.

Reason 9: Serve the Community

Having more trusted and competent leaders in any field is a positive for every community. Expanding a network of trusted individuals is an important societal structure. Contributing to collective knowledge improves our collective intelligence. As knowledge and skills are developed and citizens can get better jobs and live more comfortable lives, the hope is that as a community we all grow and prosper together. If one day you looked out and saw your environment was getting better and people were more intelligent, think of the pride you would feel to know you contributed to that positive advancement.

Reason 10: Experience Personal Growth and Satisfaction

In summary, the previous nine reasons culminate to the last reason: personal growth and satisfaction when all is said and done. You will have taken on new challenges and experiences, learned from mistakes and celebrated multiple successes. You will learn to recognize and utilize your strengths. You will develop healthy relationships with others, strengthen your communication skills, and be able to establish goals and break them down into achievable tasks. Overall, mentorship is a great way to develop a growth mindset. The process of personal growth and satisfaction through mentoring may be difficult and the results may not be immediate, but improved wellbeing, increased happiness, and a boost to your career may be worth the challenges.

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