Seven Reasons You Need a Mentor in Your Life

1. No man is an island

                Having someone besides you is not only a professional requirement but also a social bare necessity. We are by nature social, so receiving constant advice, protection, and guidance can ultimately work in favor of our social integration. Having a mentor is one of the most important forms of validation society can generate towards us. Although some people develop an early tendency to isolate themselves from the others and from society in general, few of them are able to achieve real success in this form. Isolation leads to misalignment and an accumulate anger towards everything which is different and threatens to disturbs a personal status quo.

2. Follow the leader

                Few of us are blessed with the qualities of being a true leader, and for most people, the burden of developing a long term strategy and sticking to it might be harder than it seems. Discipline and productivity are sometimes allusive when external levers are missing from someone’s life. Self-motivation is usually not enough, and having a mentor to take leadership can bypass important blockages in one’s life and career. The light at the end of the tunnel might dim itself to inexistence when problems converge from all directions. Having someone besides you who already went through all the stages can pave a faster and safer road ahead.

3. There no shame to ask for help

                Asking for help, acceptance and advice is seen by many as a form of weakness. The hero which does it all by his/her own means takes the highlight in today’s society. Being a mentor is mostly about regognising unspoken weaknesses which need to be addressed. Having the power to lift someone’s chin and reassuring that everything is going to be fine makes up for the most of being a good mentor.

4. Experience over enthusiasm

                A young age always brings with it a backpack full of energy and enthusiasm. All seems possible and thinking twice if the road you are running on is your best option usually doesn’t come until it’s too late to head back with your head up. Experience coming from a mentor can help as a counterweight for pointless energy consumption most youngsters are eager to undertake. Brought together and assembled together, experience and enthusiasm can generate a symbiosis unmatched by anything else. Nevertheless, there is the risk that experience and enthusiasm work as antagonist forces, neutralizing energy which could have been used otherwise.

5. The power of the example

The first thing that comes in our minds when we try to achieve something great and rewarding is “has this been done before?” Digging in the glory of the past and extracting proper examples can substantially ease up our struggle for a solution. Having a mentor next to you can offer aisles and aisles of problem solving techniques and approaches. But don’t rely just on copying your mentor’s recipe for success and take active steps towards adapting the example.

6. Friendship

Last but not to be neglected, a mentor should always be seen as a friend. Although it’s main goal is to direct on the right path and initiate, the mentor’s role is by no means restricted to a cold formal approach. The pop culture abounds in the scenario showing how the initial problematic relationship between a professor/mentor and his/her student grows to become true friendship. Compromise is usually met halfway, with both sides being molded by the influence coming from the opposite direction.

7. Returning the favor

                The relationship between a mentor and its pupils is far from being unidirectional. Both sides can benefit from it, although seeing the mentor taking notes are rendered impossible by a general misbelieve that envelopes especially the school system. As information is more and more accessible, knowing how to handle it has become far more important than knowing how to store it inside your mind. From this point of view, a mentor, assumed to have an older age, will always receive a certain benefit from keeping contact with the generations riding the crest of the wave in terms of change.