What Is A Mentor

What is a Mentor?

A mentor is someone that you can look up to and go to for support. In order to be a good mentor, you must posses certain qualities. The most important quality is experience. To be able to help someone, you must know what he or she is going through. Another required quality is the ability to listen. Mentoring consists mainly of communicating with the person. Hearing and understanding is very important. Mentors must also be sympathetic and willing to help. Compassion is key to any mentor relationship. Mentors play a key role in the lives of many.

Experience is the most important quality that a mentor must posses. A good mentor has to have been through or know about the problems they are mentoring for. No one wants advice from someone who has no idea what he or she is talking about. A mentor should have had a mentor before so that they know what they are supposed to do and say. Being a recovering alcoholic, my mother has been one of the many mentors in my life. She has been in A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) for twenty-one years, which has helped her become a mentor for me. She has been through many issues in her life. I have also been through some of these same issues in my own life. I had a problem with alcohol, and she was there. I got involved in A.A. with her. She understood what I was going through because she had been there as well. She was able to help me through it by telling me how she was able to overcome her addiction. We learn through the experience and mistakes of our mentors.

A mentor must also be able to listen. If you have someone who rambles on and on about their selves and never ask about you, then they probably wouldn’t be good mentors. A good mentor listens first and then speaks. You have to know about the person’s specific problems if you want to help that particular person. Everyone deals with their problems in their own way. When I was junior high we had what was called “Student Mentor Program” SMP. This was quite literally, a student mentoring other students. This didn’t work out so well, as I’m sure you could have guessed. My “mentor” was a girl who was only a couple of years older than me. We didn’t ever really hang out or talk, so we didn’t really know each other very well. When we were together, she was always talking about her own affairs, or on the phone with her friends. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Needless to say, she didn’t help me with much except how my hair should have looked,