5 Steps To Achieve More Out Of Your Mentorship
Reach your goals by becoming a better mentee
Mentorship is a two-way process. Even if you’ve got the best mentor in the world, you won’t get the most out of the experience, unless you put in the work. Mentorship allows you to tap into the existing knowledge, skills, and experience of senior or high performing individuals. Their guidance can potentially help you advance your own career. In the business of real estate, having a mentor with experience and good intentions can take you far.
1. Consider both short- and long-term goals.
As a mentee, what are you hoping to gain? When discussing goals, establish both long- and short-term objectives. The shorter-term goals can be seen as steps or benchmarks along the road toward reaching her longer-term aspirations.
Articulating and defining your goals in both the long and short term will provide you with a roadmap that leads you to the final destination, ie, the big picture.
For instance, if the long term goal is to be the highest achiever for this quarter, your short term goal would be anything that will help you reach your big goal. An example a small goal would be: reach out to x prospects by (time frame) using LinkedIn. Starting small and building a system can be useful to map out clear goals.
2. Be realistic.
Being ambitious is great, shoot for the stars and land on the moon right? If you want to achieve something, you should do whatever it takes to get there. Still, it’s important to make sure these mentee goals align with reality.
For example, do you have the necessary skills —if you don’t, what are some concrete ways to acquire them? Will time allow it? What obstacles might stand in your way? These are the types of questions a mentor and mentee should discussing together when formulating goals.
Create a timeline that includes benchmarks (the aforementioned short-term goals) that makes sense in terms of resources available, what the goals are and other factors. Success doesn’t happen overnight, so you need to recognize what’s a realistic time frame and what’s not.
3. Work together
Both of you should be working together to create a plan to achieve the goals set out. The mentor can provide guidance and assess what’s achievable and how to attain these aspirations, while the mentee will set the agenda and articulate her objectives in the first place. Moreover, the mentor can help set clear benchmarks along the way to success.
Part of this point involves making the most of every session you have together and ensuring you have a structured agenda in place. Knowing what to discuss is crucial because it sets the tone and time will not be wasted pondering on what to discuss. The mentor’s job is to engage the mentee, while the mentee should have specific questions and items they’d like to cover.
4. Use the SMART method
SMART stands for:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound
Many professionals use this method to set goals. For every objective, you’ll need to assess these qualities to create a clear path for meeting it.
For example, let’s say you intend to make a career switch. A SMART plan might look like this:
Specific goal: changing from corporate job to self-employment as a property agent
Measurable goal: Saving up 6 months worth of pay and ensuring that you make your first sale by your 4th month in.
Attainable goal: Speak to a mentor that understands your situation and works with you to look at your current resources.evise resume and consult with a friend in HR about it
Relevant goal: feeling more fulfilled at work and being able to use a skill set I haven’t nurtured in my current role, e.g networking capabilities
Time-based: send out X number of messages on LinkedIn and land Y number of coffee chats by Z date
5. Measure progress
Measure the progress of your relationship to determine whether you’re achieving your goals with your mentor. Establish how frequently you’ll check in to assess how you’re each doing, and stick to this schedule. It is important to ensure that both mentor and mentee are on the same page and feeling like this relationship is meeting your needs and expectations. Establish the questions you’ll address during these check-ins upfront so no one is surprised later on.
Potential questions to help you get started:
• How is the mentee doing with her goals? Has she achieved the established benchmarks?
• What’s going well?
• What could be improved?
• What could the mentee and mentor do differently to improve the relationship?
Both the mentor and mentee answer these questions and have an honest dialogue.
Mentee goals and objectives:
A mentor-mentee relationship can lead to positive changes and growth for both people involved, but it’s important to establish the desired outcomes upfront. Understanding what both of you want out of this relationship would be beneficial as you’ll be accountable to one another. Additionally, this will add structure to your sessions and help guide your discussion.
Now that you know how to be a good mentee, where can you find a good mentor? Well, you’re on this page for a reason, right? But we’ve written an article that gives you some tips here
At the end of the day, you’re both busy people, make every minute count and be as productive as possible. If you’re a looking for a mentor, you want someone that is honest, specific and can create a step-by-step plan for how to get there.
We wish you all the best and hope that our tips will help you have a fruitful mentor-mentee relationship.
