Would Marty McFly ever have gotten home without Doc Brown? Would he have been stuck for years in 1955? What would have been the impact on his future life and his family?
Without his Mentor, Doc Brown, he may have floundered for years trying to figure it all out on his own. He may never have got to 1985, and the life he knew he could have.
Back to the Future may only be a film but having a
Mentor is the equivalent of time travelling into your future.
A Mentor can fast track your career, fine tune your vision and be an independent confidant creating new opportunities and shortcuts. Here are three reasons why you need a Mentor to fast forward into your future.
1. Fine tuning and believing in your vision.
Often those that are closest to you cannot be your Mentor, your advisor or even your advocate. They are too close to you, impartiality with knowledge is key. A Mentor will delve into your vision to understand your ambition before sharing improvements, challenge any assumptions and creating a clear path for you.
A carefully chosen Mentor will genuinely care that you succeed. Working together your vision goes from black and white and vague to beautifully detailed colour, with the soundtrack that transports you there immediately. It goes viral in your head and becomes possible and real. With a good plan of action and a shoulder to lean on.
2. Create boundaries and consistency that you cannot do alone.
A Mentor creates boundaries that we cannot create for ourselves. It may be starting off with setting time aside to achieve your most coveted project. They may be milestones, detailed or high level plans, and deadlines.
It will be celebrating successes and learning along the way. Importantly if you have the right Mentor for you, she will know that you have may facets to your life, not just your career, there is family, friends, health, well being as well as ambition and wealth to consider.
With consistent and regular mentoring conversations, each milestone can be achieved or adjusted in response to the latest achievements and personal life demands.
3. Share specific experience in what you want to achieve.
Choose the Mentor that has already been there and achieved your dream and goal. She will know what it looks and feels like. She will share the steps that you need to take, how it feels, what the shortcuts are and what are the most common pitfalls to avoid.
I strongly recommend a Mentor that has achieved your goal in the last two to three years, no more than five years. This recent experience will be most relevant for you. The detailed steps, technical advice and emotional memories, will be freshest in her mind within these timeframes. The recency of her experience lends to sharing the most timely connections, and influencers.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain from having a Mentor. It starts with a clear purpose and the rest will flow from there. You don't need to know exactly what it looks like, only that you need to achieve it. Then you can fast track into the future and save yourself time!
Susan Sheehan is the Founder and CEO of Back Yourself Mentoring, a mentoring connecting business and community for women. Back Yourself is an advocate for women to back themselves and their careers investing in a Mentor. We create authentic 121 mentoring relationships for women, connecting the Mentee who has a clear purpose and ambition with the Mentor who has already been there and wants to give back to another woman.