Once you and your mentor have got to know each other, it’s time to really start working towards your goals. Here are some ideas for setting and tracking your goals.
Focus on your goals
Set goals
You might find that using management tools, like a Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results (SOAR) audit, can help you consider how to develop your skills to meet your goals. You could also use an approach like GROW to set goals for each of your sessions.
Log what you’re learning
After each meeting, email your mentor with a short list of key learning points and actions from the session. You might find it useful to keep a log of each session for yourself too.
Highlight any useful tips and ideas that come up, as well as new goals or queries you’d like to discuss with your mentor. This will help you reflect on what you’ve learned and give direction to your future sessions. It’s also a useful tool to refer back to when you’ve finished your mentoring.
Keep a work diary
You might also want to keep a work diary to help you organise your thoughts, recognise your skills and notice issues as they come up that might be useful to talk to your mentor about. Ahead of each meeting, email your mentor to let them know what you’d like to discuss.
"I have a special notebook dedicated to my mentoring and only use this to write notes in during sessions. Having notes in one place makes it easier to revisit that learning. My mentoring was an invaluable learning process."
Reviewing the relationship
Allow for change
You might find that your objectives change as the process moves forward. This might mean talking to your mentor about setting new priorities. Or it might mean bringing things to a close, if you’ve already gotten what you need out of the match.
Give feedback
Keep communicating with your mentor. Is there anything you’re finding particularly helpful? Anything you’d like to being doing more of or less of? Don’t forget to keep revisiting your objectives too.
Plan ahead
Always try to have dates in the diary for your next few meetings. If you’re suddenly very busy, or you’re changing jobs, let your mentor know as soon as possible.
Talk to CharityComms
Sometimes mentors get very busy with work or something else stops them from getting in touch. If that happens, get in touch and we’ll look into it for you.