5 Ways A Mentor Can Help You Achieve Career Success

By Perminus Wainaina

Achieving career success depends on your dedication, skills set, and how well you position yourself for your ideal job along with how well you relate with your boss and colleagues.  Having a great mentor can also accelerate your career success because they will give you knowledge on how to go about it as opposed to “flying blind”.

A mentor is someone who is more experienced than you are in a specific area in which you seek guidance. It could also be someone you look up to maybe because they hold a position you would like to hold someday or how they conduct their job.

So what is the importance of a mentor in your career success?

1.You learn from their lessons

As a beginner, you probably have a lot of difficulties you have to face. This is where a mentor comes in, because they are experienced, they help prepare you for those challenges and guide you on how to navigate them.

A mentor will help you by showing you the ropes of the industry for example if you are in the sales industry a good mentor would give you techniques that work.

They are in a better position to guide you because they have been there. They can also help you avoid making mistakes that can delay your career success because they probably made similar mistakes and picked up lessons from them.

2. They will help you make important decisions

There will come a time when you will have to make an important but difficult decision and having a great mentor will help make a better judgement of the situation. Because they are able to look at the situation objectively, they will be in a better position to give you unbiased advice as well as experience based guidance in the situation.

3.They will hold you accountable.

One way to ensure you achieve career success is by sharing your dreams with someone else. A mentor will help you come up with a career plan and ensure you stick to it by constantly checking in on you.

This will make you accountable which would mean that you will work harder at it because you have someone to hold you accountable if you don’t.

4.They will put your career on the fast track

Having a mentor will help fast track your career if you choose one carefully. If you have a mentor who is a manager or CEO, they will guide you through their career experience and bring you closer to where they are career-wise. A  mentor will also guide you through networking activities while also sharing and or introducing you to their networks which is very likely to open new doors for you.

5.They will help you improve your skills

Because they have been in the industry for long, they know what works and what skills will grow your career.

Your mentor will help you by guiding you on the skills you need to acquire to progress in your career.

Tips to help you maintain a good relationship with your mentor

1.Honor your commitment

It is important for you to respect the fact that your mentor may have taken up on extra duty mentoring you hence the need to honor the time they set aside for you.

That means that for example if you agree to meet at a certain time ensure you are there by then or if you have to reply to messages, do so in a timely manner. Avoid wasting any of your mentor’s time as it would only strain your relationship.

2.Expect support, not miracles

This is very important to remember. Your mentor is there to guide you and offer you support but they cannot fix your problems for you.

They will offer feedback on certain things but they will not do all the work for you.

3.Be teachable

In order for you to learn from your mentor, you need to be teachable. This means you need to be willing to learn new things and change your way of thinking.  Take constructive criticism into consideration and work on the issues brought up.

Your relationship with your mentor can grow into a mutually beneficial networking one. You never know who you might meet courtesy of your mentor and how that can better your career.

Perminus Wainaina is a Certified HR Consultant, Career Coach and Managing Partner of Corporate Staffing Services, a leading recruitment firm in Kenya. As a career coach, Perminus works with experienced professionals in helping them determine and achieve what they want in their career  Click here for more on career coaching.

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