Finding a mentorship can be a double-edged sword

Mentorship is valuable, but it’s not the sole driver of success. Personal effort and mutual respect matter just as much in our ability to learn from other people. 

Mentorship is something I’ve reflected on in my mid-thirties, not because I view mentorship as a bad thing, or something that isn’t needed. Following someone and listening to their advice isn’t the only way someone can succeed in life. 

Being self-motivated and knowing what you want in life are key factors to success. While they’re not the only factors, I see them as major ones because pushing oneself forward toward your goals  is ideal for growth in all areas of life. This often includes the ability to know when to listen and when to speak. 

“Most of us have a misunderstanding about how mentorships actually work,” said Businessman Simon Sinek, an author and speaker of business leadership, on his YouTube channel. “Mentor relationships are relationships like any other. They started off like friendships.” 

A study done in 2009 by the National Library of Medicine looked at a meta-analysis and compared individuals who are mentored to individuals that weren’t. It sought to answer the question, does mentoring matter, and if so, how much? 

Mentoring happens in extra-curricular youth activities, in the workplace and academics. All these places, however, will not have the same type of mentoring. A football coach won’t inspire their team the same way an office manager would the office. In both scenarios the goal is to have the best outcome. But a coach will sometimes yell at his players to get the best out of them. I don’t see this happening in an office setting. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just different. 

The study hypothesized that mentoring has effects on positive behavior, attitude, health, relationships, motivations and career outcomes. We must consider that the focus of a mentorship is different for youth than it is for a young adult, or an adult living with a family of their own. 

The findings of the study are that academic mentoring has a stronger positive outcome than youth mentoring. Any positive outcomes for workplace mentoring were somewhere in the middle of the data set. 

In my experience, self-motivation and confidence don’t come easy. At any stage in life, we can have unhealthy relationships, parental issues and academic or career problems. This is where a strong friendship comes into play, and it’s what a healthy mentorship is all about. 

“Great mentor relationships, both parties show up to teach and both parties show up to learn,” said Sinek. “Though we may be the advice giver, some of the time, the best ones want to learn as much from their mentees. In other words, it’s a true friendship. It’s a two-way street.” 

This is how I’ve always seen mentorships. They are relationships that don’t hold one person over the other. Even if one person is ahead or has found success in a career and the other is a little behind, this doesn’t mean that nothing can be learned from one another. 

I’ve had relationships where people have tried to use the son card on me. That type of behavior always rubbed me the wrong way and made me feel as though I wasn’t being productive. Instead, I was just someone who served under someone’s authority with no actual purpose other than being used for their personal gain. This made me feel stuck and stagnant and I no longer speak to these people who I used to look up to. 

I’m willing to listen, but I can and do want to speak, so I can further the conversation and learn in the process. Self-control plays a big role in someone who is willing to be a mentor, as they need to allow the mentee to develop their own thoughts. This has been my experience with some of my professors, who are willing to sit down with me and have a conversation. They don’t interrupt me when I speak. Instead, they hear me out and then give their opinion or add to the conversation we are having, which helps us both grow from the experience. 

According to the 2018 Strada-Gallup Alumni Survey, 64% of graduates either agreed or strongly agreed that their mentor was a professor. 43% said their mentor was a professor in arts and humanities. Additionally, 28% were from science and engineering, 20% from social sciences and 9% were from business. 

Mentors are supposed to challenge you, not because they want to see you fail, but because they want to see you become better today than you were yesterday. The survey found that graduates who agreed they were challenged academically were 3.6 times more likely to say they were prepared for life after university. 

What surprised me the most is the time after college the graduates stayed in contact with their professors. 46% said they had communicated with their mentors in the last 3 months, while 29% said it had been a year or more, suggesting that mentor relationships are lifelong friendships that hold a strong bond. I see these as successful mentorships. 

I’m reminded of the film “The Devil Wears Prada,” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. In the film, Streep’s character was a dragon lady who challenged her employees by ridicule and made them feel incompetent. In the end, if her employees were able to overcome the challenges, then they grew. However, Hathaway’s character understood that she was becoming someone she was not. Mentoring doesn’t mean you have to become a carbon copy of your mentor, abandoning yourself in the process. Rather, it’s supposed to be you becoming a stronger version of yourself. 

To be frank, I don’t have a mentor here at UWT. I just haven’t found a connection like that yet. But outside of school, I have a couple friendships that resemble the type of relationship I have been unpacking in this article. These are friends who I can call and share information with about anything. 

What’s most important is that we want to hear each other’s opinion on whatever it is we are talking about. That is essential to mentorship or any relationship. We are self-motivated and desire each other to reach new plateaus in our thinking and our lives. 

Finding a mentor is not as simple as walking up to someone successful and asking for advice and hoping they become someone important in your life. You also have to become important to them and show them you care for their well-being. 

At UW Tacoma, there are mentorship programs which students can apply for depending on their interests. However, if you look at these opportunities, they are career-based mentorships. 

It’s easy to forget that mentors can be anyone who you look up to and hold in high esteem. But you can also strive to have more than just a mentor mentee relationship.  

You can aim for something higher where two people help and motivate each other to have fulfillment, not only within their careers, but in all areas of life.