Why does it pay to have a mentor in life?
Whether you are an entrepreneur who is just starting out or a student not sure on what career to choose, having a mentor can pay dividends. More often than not, it can be someone that you are already familiar with and know; someone whom you can choose to mentor and guide you along, to share their experiences with you so that you can learn from the same, all of which can prove to be invaluable lessons just as you are starting out. If you are still wondering whether you need a mentor or not, then you may want to check out some of the reasons below for why a mentor is not just necessary but essential for one’s success.
A ready source of information: Mentors often prove to be a font of knowledge and that’s why you have chosen them to be your mentor. They often know more about a subject than you would or what it takes to set up a company from getting all the basic details filed; who to file it with and then how to work the budgeting overlay for the new company etc. The fact is that mentors can provide you with essential information and help save you valuable time which you can then reutilize to concentrate on your business and its core. With a mentor at hand, you should be able to pick up all the essential tips a lot faster and put it all to good use.
Mentors can appraise us perfectly: We are often blind to our own faults; guess we can chalk that up to being ‘human’ but a mentor can assess our abilities and judge us accurately on the basis of the same. They should be able to pinpoint where we need improvement and what we need to work on right away. This can make all the difference between success and failure; after all, it is not every day that we get appraised and we can now use this knowledge to further improve ourselves and strategize accordingly.
Mentors help to stimulate personal growth: The fact is that having a mentor around all the time can indeed prove to be challenging since they are supposed to modify us for the better. A mentor may set certain tasks and goals which he would like us to accomplish within a specific time frame and doing so should help us grow into better individuals. Generally, we should get an assessment on how we did from the mentor who would then point out where we did right and where we went horribly wrong. The point is that we are bound to grow more, with a mentor in the wings.
Motivation: Mentors often provide the much-needed encouragement and motivation that we all require from time to time. A few studies have established that no matter how well established we may be, we all still require a little bit of encouragement and motivation from time to time. Mentors help to do just that and with the right amount of motivation, we should be able to complete any task.
Sounding boards: Mentors often act as sounding boards that we can bounce ideas off, we can try out various ideas and concepts on them and they can give us their take on the same and as to whether the idea/ concept is a viable one or not. The one thing that we can count from a mentor is honest feedback and we should be able to use the same to determine if the idea is worth spending time over.
Network: So we tend to be slightly shy, so what? With the help of a good mentor, we should still be able to build an adequate network. He can give us the introductions and we can go from there. With a good network, we should be able to market our products and services in no time at all.
Great advice: The road that we are traveling on is the one that has already been traversed by our mentors. He is bound to have some great advice for us and can even help prevent us from making the same mistakes that he did all those years ago.
These are some of the reasons why it is essential that everyone has a mentor to depend on and to help guide them along. A good mentor can help you avoid the various pitfalls in life so that you can achieve your goal without any hassle or lost time.