A Brutally Honest Account of Having a Mentor

This year I made radical changes in my life and done things I had never done before. One of those things was enrolling myself in a mentoring program and being mentored. The mentor that was assigned to me was a woman who was only slightly older than me, super successful and very high up in her corporate role. She had started at the bottom and worked her way up over the years in a male-dominated industry. She was lovely, funny, ambitious, inspiring and totally relatable. We met once a month for about an hour, and we also had email communication in between our catch-ups. We got to talk about work, career, mindset and general life stuff such as travel, property and we even spoke about fertility treatments and the prospect of freezing my eggs.

It started off great and I found it to be motivating, but after a few months I stopped seeing her. The justification in my head at the time was, things are busy, work is crazy, I'm struggling with some health issues and frankly the 30-minute drive to see her is way too inconvenient. Truth be told, at the time I didn’t really know why I stopped seeing her, but I was self-aware enough to know that these were just excuses.

Perhaps I couldn’t face the truth and the reality of my own life. The company I had started with my partner was not my passion and not what I really wanted to be doing on a day to day basis. I had become almost like a personal assistant to my boyfriend and was inundated with administration. Although as a business owner I was happy to do this, I also knew deep down that this wasn’t what I wanted to do forever and I had a desire to do something I was passionate about. It was hard to come to this conclusion. My mentor was specifically assigned to mentor me about the business, so I really struggled with the realisation that this may be something I didn't want to do in the long term.

I remember the last time I saw her at our last scheduled meeting. I had a random thought pop into my head and told her I wanted to start writing. I had no idea where this came from. There was absolutely no reason for me to even say this. I had romanticised about becoming a writer when I was younger, but besides writing in my diary, I had never written anything before. Shortly after I announced this to her, I wrote and published my first article on LinkedIn, which to my surprise gained over 1000 likes and had almost 32,000 views. In my heart, I knew this is what I was meant to be doing.

Months went on by, the mentoring program was coming to an end and I still hadn’t seen or spoken to my mentor. At the time I wasn’t sure I had gained much from the program. In hindsight, I realised it taught me so much about myself. Things I’m only recognising now. If I hadn’t gone to see her, I wouldn’t have found my passion for writing.

I thought having a mentor was going to be this light bolt moment, where I would have an epiphany of what I wanted to do with my life. It helped me find what I wanted to do, but it certainly wasn’t this big loud moment. It was more a slight, gentle push that lead to me this current moment right now. One I’m so happy to be in. This is my 12th article I have published now. In total, they have received over 6,000 likes, comments and shares and almost 94,000 views. I have received countless messages of support from friends, family, acquaintances and strangers. I know that writing is what I am meant to be doing.

Last week was the final event for the mentoring program. I didn’t go. I hadn’t even spoken to my mentor and I felt I couldn’t show my face. Then I got a pleasant surprise. I got an email from her saying that the program had ended and she hoped that she helped me in some way. I realised she had no idea what she had done for me. I was so worried she was going to think bad of me for not seeing her, that I didn’t tell her that she helped me find what I love to do.

In gaining knowledge of knowing what I don’t want, I found what it is I do want. This is something I have my mentor to thank for. Sometimes it takes distance from someone or a situation to realise the impact they have had on us. So I'm writing this now to say thank you Kirsten. Thank you for everything you have done for me. For giving me the clarity and courage to move towards my passion and mission in life. I am forever grateful.

If you are thinking of joining a mentoring program, whether as a mentor or mentee, my advice is do it. Just don’t forget to throw out your preconceived ideas of what you think it is going to be like and go in with an open mind. You never know where the road leads you. You might be as lucky as me and fall into finding your bliss or better still, help someone find theirs.

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