Mentoring and Coaching Relationships Defined

When you were a child, did you ever fall down and bruise your knee, elbow or arm? As many of you know, some bruises we encountered really didn't require any medicine or intervention. We were told everything would be OK and to dust ourselves off and keep moving. Some bruises were slightly painful and uncomfortable; requiring minimal medicine and intervention from someone we trusted, but allowing us to continue moving until things was better. And with others, they were a bit more painful and took time to heal. Someone we trusted may have applied medicine that burned when it initially touched the wound. However, over time and with care, the healing process took place and you didn't even notice the tiny scar that remained.

As adults, we sometimes experience situations or circumstances in our personal and professional lives that resemble to those childhood bruises. Some situations will be learning and growing experiences that encourage us to keep moving forward. Other situations will be slightly painful and uncomfortable, but with minimum guidance, we will endure and continue moving forward. And others will be a bit more painful and may stop us dead in our tracks for a moment. They will require more time and guidance from someone we trust, and allow us to assess what I call our SWOF Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Fears), to help shape us into the great individuals we were destined to be.

So how can childhood bruises correlate with Mentoring or Coaching (MoCR) Relationships?
• MoCR-Level 1: At this basic level, you may be on the right path already, but just need a MoC to tell you that everything will be OK and encourage you to continue moving forward and developing yourself.

• MoCR-Level 2: At this level, you may have some uncertainty around what your next step should be or how to handle certain situations. You may need to do some self-reflection that is not always easy. It may sting and be uncomfortable, because we are not hearing exactly what we want to hear about ourselves, or the paths we are taking. In this case, with guidance from our trusted MoC and our own self-assessments, we will be moving forward again in the right direction.

• MoCR-Level 3: At this level, you may have been severely bruised and definitely uncertain as to what direction you should take. This level requires trust, and a commitment of more patience, time, attention, and care for our own healing process to begin. You would go through the SWOF Analysis in greater detail and do a lot of self-reflecting. Over time and with patience, the end result will be a lesson learned, knowledge transferred, strengths and weaknesses identified, opportunities revealed, fears overcome and a wound completely healed.

So why do you need to understand what mentors and coaches do? It's important to understand that we all need mentors and coaches at some point in our lives. Mentors and Coaches assist us in continuously developing ourselves and reaching our full potential. Some of these relationships are short-term and some last a lifetime. Finding the right one that you feel comfortable with is important, and it will help you get further along than trying to handle some things alone.

Remember this:
"Each One, Teach One to Reach One by Mentoring" (Author Dawgelene Sangster)

©2008-2010 Dawgelene Sangster

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