The Mentoring: Passion of my life

The Mentoring: Passion of my life

I take mentoring "personally to me "because the magic of it is that it not only "benefits the mentee", but also "gives back to the mentor" to achieve "personal fulfillment from investing in others", "new mentoring skills", "feeling of being valued as a role model", "the chance to enjoy a rewarding challenge" and "the opportunity to be inspired and enlightened".

Being a mentor, I use the experience, knowledge, and skills I have gained to help mentees work toward their personal and professional development to achieve their future career aspirations and goals. I mingle with mentees and take time to understand the building blocks of their personality, preferences, and performance so that I can provide and get the information productively. I share knowledge and information gained during my career to support the mentee's career targets and goals, exploring opportunities, setting goals, developing contacts, and identifying resources. In some cases when I identify mentee is not motivated, I try to understand the mentee and provide motivation, guidance, and emotional support to bring him/her back to the achievement of his/her objectives.

I do not consider mentoring to be "finding solutions for the mentee", but I consider it to be more about "revealing hidden ideas and beliefs that may be holding the mentee back". In most cases, the mentees will have the answers that they are looking for, they just need some probing questions to clarify their thoughts and to bring these answers to the outside. I am involved with the mentee closely and act primarily as a mirror for the mentee, probing their underlying assumptions, ideas, and feelings.

I am a committed mentor and have dedicated the time and effort required for the mentoring relationship. I dare to take risks, admit mistakes, and let mentees do the same because when you take risks and admit mistakes you learn new things for personal and professional growth. I tolerate the occasional errors and use them as a learning experience. I have starved for knowledge, I am always asking questions, trying to find out how things work and why, so that I will enrich my knowledge to support mentees and strengthen my knowledge as a mentor. I am compassionate with others when they make mistakes and I try to understand the situations from another person's point of view and create opportunities for growth in other people, rather than pass judgment. Effective communication plays a vital role in the mentoring relationship, and I do not tell mentees what to do in a specific situation because it will not teach them much, but I share strategies and techniques have worked best for me and why I took them.

I am an enthusiastic, passionate, approachable person with active listening, questioning, and feedback skills who is willing to share experience, have the desire to make a difference, and ability to inspire mentees to achieve their goals. Moreover, as an effective mentor, I do not show frustration if it takes some time for the mentee to make changes to reach their aspirations and objectives. I play the role of the mentor to assist the mentee in developing their quality of thinking and help them to put it in context.

Before embarking on a mentoring relationship, I consider the knowledge, experience, and skills I can offer the mentee. In the mentoring process, I share my profile and social media links with the mentees so they will know my areas of expertise and will help them to decide on an approach for the mentoring relationship. Once mentees approach mentoring, I always inform them that mentoring is like a journey, you must know where you want to end up when you start the journey, and how will you ever know if you have arrived. For this reason, it is important that the starting point with any mentee is to get them to consider what it is they are looking to achieve from the mentoring relationship.
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To help mentees, I arrange face-to-face, and virtual meetings based on each other preferences and availabilities. I use my knowledge, experience, and skills during the meeting to understand the mentee's needs, expectations, and goals. I conduct SWOT Analysis with mentees to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) they face. Once SWOT Analysis is complete, we are developing an action plan for the identified gaps and work to close them to achieve aspirations and goals. Moreover, during meetings, I am helping mentees to identify their goals and share the situation they are facing, their thinking, the actions they are considering, and the results they are expecting. I perform this exercise with the mentees so that Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timebound (SMART) goals can be established, which will help to give a real purpose to the mentoring relationship and help mentees to get real desired results.

I give specific and sincere feedback as soon as possible after an outcome, stick to the point, state the benefit to the mentees, and shape the feedback to the person. I provide feedback at the right time and in the right way that can influence future actions, so mentees can choose to modify what they do to get better outcomes because effective feedback provides a systematic approach to developing better relationships, learning, and improving performance, staying on track, and achieving goals. I provide open, honest, affirming, and reviewing feedback to mentees so that they can move forward and develop new attitudes and behaviors to improve their career performance.

For effective mentor and mentee relationships, I ensure the following:

· I remain patient and supportive with the mentee to develop a relationship of trust.? A mentee takes time to develop trust in their new mentor.
·?I consider my purpose in the relationship to be based upon giving and guiding to make the relationship in one direction.
·?I encourage reassurance and support mentees and tell them that I believe in them so that they will gain confidence to complete their tasks to achieve their goals.
·?I suggest ways to solve problems, and I listen to possible solutions without passing judgment. I provide practical suggestions rather than criticism or instructions. Moreover, I try to think together of ways to solve a problem, rather than telling my mentees what I think they should do.
·?I identify mentees' interests and take them seriously; I involve them in determining the activities I engage in and the areas where I offer help.
·?I keep realistic expectations from mentees to prevent mentor "burnout" and frustration because I am a strong believer in "Give more, expect less" because some mentees are not "turning their lives around" or making huge improvements.
·?I try to relate to mentees' personal experiences rather try to reference them to some of the difficulties I have had within my career. I attempt to understand the mentees' needs and expectations and support them accordingly.
·?I always check with mentees the priorities and based on both parties' feedback time and energy to do tasks are agreed upon to show sincerity and commitment to the mentorship relationship.
·?I build trust and compassionately direct feedback to the mentees to help them grow because the truth will help mentees step into a greater version of themselves.
·?I share my learning experiences with mentees so they can set clear goals and objectives along with their execution plans. The execution plan includes measurable steps that lead to the desired outcome.
·?I ask specific questions and actively listen to questions to the answers to get a better picture of issues faced by my mentees and the options they are considering. Once issues are identified I provide guidance and create a situation so they can learn and overcome their problems.
·?I establish clear boundaries between me and my mentees because it will create a professional and long-term mentor and mentee relationship. In the first meeting, I always share my contact details, and availability and discuss mentor and mentee roles and responsibilities to set the boundaries.
·?I encourage mentees to share ideas and discuss those with them to check what works for them and which will not so that I will know what they are learning and where they have improvements, to do this I create curiosity and a willingness to try out different ideas that come from our interactions. During this process, we act as sounding boards for each other.
·?I conduct regular meetings with mentees and support them whenever they need my guidance toward achieving their goals. I create a less formal atmosphere and more conducive to building rapport, for that we create a structure to ensure proper planning and preparation to be productive.
·?I conduct progress reviews at periodic intervals with mentees to ensure to achieve original goals, adapt these if necessary, and ensure I review progress and milestones towards achieving these. These reviews will help to check the progress which is made and will give an idea about whether we are on track to achieve our objectives within the timeframe, which was originally set, whether boundaries are being adhered to, and whether any circumstances have arisen that have changed original plans. I keep supporting mentees till they achieve their goals even though I increase the number of reviews that help them to achieve their aspirations, goals, and objectives.
·?I take persistence, patience, time, compassion, empathy, and communication skills and do not project my aspirations or make decisions for the mentees, instead provide them with the opportunity to build their direction and path. I feel devoted to the success of mentees and take a special interest in their growth, improvement, and development.
·?For completing the mentor and mentee relationship, I fix a date for the final discussion; think to end the mentorship on a positive note, review the goals, progress made, and lessons learned; reflect on what went well, what we learned, and what can be done differently to conclude the relationship; discuss the ways to continue their learning; celebrate the success, say thanks and goodbye to mentees.

Conclusively, the best mentors are driven by a passion for making a positive difference in the world. As a result of this quality, great mentors are so inspiring; they not only want to help their mentees reach their goals, but they also hope to inspire others to do the same..