If you are looking to succeed in ANYTHING, nothing is more powerful than having a mentor. A mentor not only shows you the way, a mentor IS the way. Finding a mentor is not just about you - it is about your mentor as well. In Sanskrit literature it often says, "When the disciple is ready, the Guru appears." The same is true here - "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." Are you ready?
Nothing substitutes for having a real life flesh and blood teacher, a living person that has experienced what you are going through and has come out the other end successful, confident and accomplished. This is no small feat. It means that you are in the presence of someone who has actually done the work you are attempting to do. This is very different than taking a course or reading a book. When you are around a person who has actually walked the walked (not just talked the talked), you KNOW you are in the presence of someone who is smarter, more together than you are, and that automatically makes you accountable.
Accountability is the key ingredient for change. Why would anyone knowingly enter uncomfortable, unknown territory unless you are accountable for making those changes you know are in your best interests but are really hard to do? Being accountable to your mentor makes you accountable to yourself.
Having a mentor also keeps you from making unnecessary mistakes. Oftentimes we hear, "I need to make my own mistakes so I learn," but how many mistakes do you need to make? The amount of mistakes you can make are endless and the inability to learn from another is usually the result of a fragile ego that interprets help and assistance in a defensive way.
Simply by living in the world we learn that choosing one course of action over another produces certain results; why not choose a path we already know is successful, following the instruction of a someone who has already walked that path? Why re-invent the wheel? Ask yourself if you are open enough to learn from someone who already knows what to do and how to do it? You need to do the work but you can certainly shorten the time and make your journey less stressful. Why make the same stupid mistakes again and again?
And what about those mistakes? Are you able to learn from them as well as from your successes? Anytime you take a journey down a new path, your attitude needs to be one of openness and surrender. The paradigm of "I made a mistake; there is something wrong with me, " needs to shift to "My failures are as important as my successes. Learning from my failures insures my success, and makes me the person I am today."
With the proper mentor, you will learn to embrace your mistakes, your "failures", and understand that they give you texture; make you a multi-faceted and interesting person, a person who has developed compassion for the human condition by actually doing the work. NOTHING raises self-esteem more than doing what you say you are going to do, finishing what you have started, regardless of the fits and starts.
And lastly, the most important quality of a mentor - regardless of what you are trying to learn to do or hope to become is AUTHENTICITY! There is no way to fake this quality, no way to become authentic without actually fully stepping into life and doing what needs to be done. Ask yourself how you feel around this person? Are you inspired to stretch and grow? Are you willing to be accountable? Do you feel you are seen for who you really are? Do you feel valued and appreciated? Do you feel confident that you are with someone who has done the work and can teach it to you? Are you becoming more truthful, braver, more authentic? If you can answer "yes" to these questions, you have found your mentor.
hy i was with my ex for 4 years .he taught me alot and said hed done so much work on himself i believed him,but i started noticing that he wasnt rigid on himself as much as he was on me.he got abusive mentally and physically.we split up thank god i got out.what angers me was that he was my mentor and im gratefull of myself as iv changed so so much,but why would he help me in changing and not be complacent in his own changing.
Posted by: moira | February 03, 2011 at 07:19 AM