How Being a Mentor Could Help You Reach The Next Stage of Your Career Ladder

A career, much like most journeys in life, is all about learning. It’s about finding the ways to improve yourself, be that through your skills, your mindset, or just your own happiness. As you climb your career ladder, you’re always continuing to learn and grow.

At least, that’s how it feels at first. Sometimes, however, we hit a dead end. Sometimes we get to the point where those countless possibilities all seem to have disappeared and it can feel almost impossible to find that new way forward.

If that’s how you’re feeling right now then don’t worry. Plenty of people have been where you are before and plenty of them have gone on to incredible things they never thought themselves capable of. All you need is the right approach.

Hitting Your Ceiling

It’s never good to feel like you’ve hit your ceiling. The joy of progress is addictive which makes the crash all the more sudden when you reach that natural plateau.

There are many ways to hit a career ceiling. Either you’ve come to the natural peak of your career path, or else you’ve found yourself stuck in a job without many prospects of advancement. In practice, however, it all feels the same. Where once you were soaring ever upwards, now you’ve come to a halt.

But it doesn’t have to be this way and, as with all things in life, the first step is about understanding your situation. Look around yourself and ask why you’re not moving anymore. Once you’ve identified the source of the problem, it’ll be a lot easier to start looking for a solution.

Defining Your Own Goals

Now, there’s no one way to push past a situation like this one. Sometimes the answer can be as simple as moving to another company who are more willing to offer development. Other times it might mean retraining or at least learning new skills alongside your existing ones.

The most important thing to do here is not to ask what other people want but what you want of yourself.

For example, imagine someone working in sales – let’s call him Jack. Jack’s a great salesman and he earns a lot of money on commission but he’s been in the same role for four years now and the company he works for seem quite happy to keep him where he is.

Jack has a few choices. He could start working hard to prove he’s management material. He might even speak to his boss about the potential for a promotion. From there he could likely transition into a more senior role.

That’s one option but it’s not his only option. Young and talented, Jack could just as well open his own business. He could put his sales skills to work for his own benefit, potentially earning more and getting to grow his own company. Alternatively, he could pursue a different passion. Perhaps he wants to be an artist, or a musician.

The important point is that all these goals are valid, even if some might seem more practical than others. When you’ve reached the height of your current career, the most important question you can ask isn’t “where can I go from here?” but “where do I want to go?”.

The Road to Mastery is Teaching

With all that in mind, the more senior your role, the more competition you’re likely to run into. No matter your discipline, if you want to succeed in a highly competitive role, then you need to be more than just good at what you do, more than just great even – you need to be the best.

But how do you become the best when you’ve learned as much as you can? How can you improve your skills further when you’re already an expert in what you do?

There’s a common saying that goes “those that can’t do, teach” but here at Career Navig8r, we know that’s just not true. In fact, it’s often the best of the best who become teachers and one of the reasons they do so is because of just how much you can learn by mentoring someone else through the fundamentals.

The act of teaching forces you to revisit everything you thought you knew and to explain it in a way that will make sense to someone else. You have to get inside their head and understand their perspective. As you do so, you start to understand everything you thought you knew in far more depth.

Put simply, there’s no more powerful way to learn than by teaching someone else. If you want to become a true master, then you should start by becoming a Mentor.

Wondering how you can find your first Mentees and start mastering your skills? Sign up to Career Navig8r, and you can earn money while teaching Mentees, developing your own skills and being paid for the time. That’s the power of mentoring!