Boosting your self-development

Self-development became the main topic of modern life. Just look at the never-ending stream of self-improvement books, programs, and various articles on the topic. However, what is the most efficient way to speed up your professional and personal development? In my example can say that books, articles, and conferences help you to get the required knowledge, but one of the most efficient ways here is to exchange with somebody who can either share their experience or listen and then ask good questions. Leveraging the experience of smart people around you is a tool that can bring you further in your career and personal life.

I cannot stop talking about the importance of mentoring both professional and personal life and let me start with mentioning the main benefits of mentoring:

• self-development and career progression. You are learning from the experience of the other person, be it a mentor or a mentee.
• confidence. Mentees learn to speak up and talk about their problems, and for mentors seeing the success of the mentee reaffirms their abilities.
• increased self-awareness. You need to realize your strengths, weaknesses and be clear on your values to engage in the mentorship relationship.
• communication skills, ability to listen and deliver feedback.
• problem-solving. Especially mentors are challenged to see the problem from a different perspective. It is worth mentioning that mentoring is a two-way street where mentors also learn a lot from mentoring.

First steps before looking for a mentor

Mentors represent the supporting network that helps you to grow. And building up this supporting network is not possible without specific goals you set for yourself. You need to be clear on your vision first, what do you want to achieve, what are your challenges. Every decision you make should be guided by this vision of your future self. After setting a vision and goals, it is easier to understand which people do I need in my supporting network, who should be my role model.

You dream about something, define your goals and define your vision, then find people who help you get there.

The importance of your supporting network

It is all about self-development and getting better every day. It requires a huge effort from your side to maintain the order of your life, be it health, relationships, career, and skills. This constant battle for your focus and progression in the direction of goals is accompanied by friction. That’s why by placing yourself in the supporting environment you not only rely on internal motivation but get support and guidance from the outside.

Let’s imagine that you decided to become an artist. Hanging out with the people who neglect art will not bring you any good, you need to surround yourself with artists first, whom you can exchange ideas with and who will motivate you to keep going. The same with becoming an entrepreneur - you need to surround yourself with the role models that can inspire you.

Long story short: when you plan to invest in yourself you should invest in your circle first and carefully pick up people you spend the most of the time with. The people you can learn from can help you keep the focus on your goals and the most important increase interest in what you are doing and motivate for the new ways of exploring how things should be.

This supporting circle can also include people that you know virtually, who share their knowledge through social media, for example.

On mentoring relationship types

There can be different ways you engage with the people who support you. And here comes the classification of mentoring in three groups: advisor, coach, and mentor.

Advisor

If we talk about career or professional space this is the most common and the most beneficial type of relationship that can help you solving the existing problem. These are the people who have a similar experience to yours, you share the same domain and/or profession and are more experienced in this. They usually have achieved something that you set yourself as a goal now. The relationships with an advisor have some specific goals and are limited in time.

What are success factors in this relationship:

• you need to have a specific goal or problem you are trying to solve
• you need to manage your relationship actively to get the best results

The easiest way to find is to check precisely for the people in the area you are working in that achieved something you plan to (can be Linkedin, conferences, or postings on freelance platforms with the request to give a consultancy).

Coach

Compared to an advisor this is a type of mentorship role where a person not necessarily achieved what you are planning for, but can help to figure out the way to it.

As an example, you can think of an athlete and sports coach. As you know the best soccer players rarely end up being successful coaches. This is the main difference between coach and advisor. Advisor will give you answers to your problems from his experience, while the coach will help you figure out the way to solving your problem by asking the right questions.

The relationship with a coach is more long-term. This is the type of person you should fully trust and be sincere with.

A coach helps you to define a goal, helps you to work through your impediments in achieving this goal, be aware of your resources, support and motivate you in reaching your goals, but not as an active role, more as an observer.

Mentor

This is the most complex type of relationship that requires a lot of time and effort to build it and also special chemistry between you. The person who are your role model, but not only in one specific area, like career, but overall with the life attitude.

These relationships are deep and long-term and always assume no pre-defined schedule for meetings or no predefined problems to solve. You just exchange on some particular topics and a person shares his wisdom with you.

You can be from different professional domains, but need to share the same values when it comes to life attitude. This is a person you are comfortable with and who is to become your friend.

Depending on your current goals and situation, and also on your personality type you can decide what kind of support you are looking for and start searching for these people. The recipe for a mutually beneficial relationship with your advisor/coach/mentor is mainly commitment from both sides, sincerity, and open communication.