Do you (or would you like a) Mentor?
Because a mentor ain't just for business :)
Dear lovely readers
I hope this missive finds you well and gearing up for the last few 5 weeks of the year. 5 weeks??? Yes, really. Isn’t that scary!!
The end of 2025 has creeped up on us (well, it has me) but then it’s been a bit of a year - deaths, job struggles - you know, all the usual lot that goes into being a woman at this stage in our lives.
But we battle on, don’t we? And that struggle makes us who we are. And, given all the struggles and challenges we’ve probably been through at this stage in our lives, it puts us in a bit of a position where we can really give back.
And by giving back, I mean mentoring. The term mentoring is usually connected with someone who helps and advises you in a business/work related sense - but it doesn’t have to be.
In my book (which, I admit, might be a bit of a strange one) mentoring and it’s benefits are fitted to anything that helps us to improve our lives and position. And it can be either by doing mentoring (really gratifying) or by receiving (equally as gratifying)
Wondering where the term came from? I thought I’d give it a search online and the Oxford English Dictionary describes a mentor as:
“A trusted friend and advisor”.
The definition makes no mention of it being a work only term or that it refers purely to business. We aren’t all Anita Roddicks (founder of the Body Shop) or Oprah Winfreys (don’t need to explain this one, do I?) with their mega business success, but I bet deep down within you, there’s something that you want to achieve - whether that’s on a personal level or something work related.
And, it’s very much human nature that we tell ourselves not to think about that thing, because we’re nowhere near good enough to achieve it or things that like that don’t happen to people like us. So it’s gets pushed to the back of our mind whilst we get on with our everyday.
This is where a mentor comes in. A skilled mentor will ask the right questions to elicit what it is you most want to achieve.