How to Self-Mentor

How to Self-Mentor

Last week in the post Self-Mentoring – an Idea for the Twenty-First Century, we delved into the idea of mentoring yourself. We mentioned briefly how to become a self-mentor and how to use The Invisible Mentor blog to mentor yourself. But how do you really mentor yourself, and how can you use resources other than those found on this blog?

We mentioned that you have to know yourself, and you have to identify your mentoring needs. Knowing what your needs are allows you to fill those needs. So whenever you meet someone, view it as mentoring in a moment, we can learn from everyone, if we pay attention. Whenever you read, never do it in a vacuum, always think how you can use the information and how it relates to what you already know – interact with the information to bring it to life.

If you come across a new idea that sounds interesting that you do not understand, take 30 minutes or so to explore it a little more deeply. When we learn, we want to have a reason for learning, but we also want to balance that with building our general knowledge which is critical to creative problem solving.

Immerse yourself in different situations. Do something that you’ve always wanted to do, but didn’t have the courage to do before now. To self-mentor is not only about people, it’s also about situations, resources, ideas and concept. It’s about exploration, and being your true self. Spend some time on YouTube, SlideShare.net and Scribd.com researching topics and ideas that you are interested in. Pop over to Questia.com, AskNature.org and HowStuffWorks.com and explore some more.

It may not appear like you are mentoring yourself but you are. A mentor is someone who guides and advises you. What guidance and advice do you need? While you are exploring the resources mentioned in this post, you’ll learn new things and you’ll learn about potential mentors, who you could call and have a 15-minute conversation with.

Taking control of your professional development puts you in a position of power. You take control of your life, and journey on a path that’s right for you. Self-mentoring is not easy, neither are the best things in life. Take the time to understand your needs, and fill those needs. Build a solid formation on which you can build on. That’s self-mentoring in action.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Related articles

• Self-Mentoring – an Idea for the Twenty-First Century (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Create Your Board of Mentors – January is National Mentoring Month (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Mentoring in Moments at Socialize Toronto (theinvisiblementor.com)

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