By Joanne Lozar Glenn who can be contacted at www.mentorme.info 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

1. MENTOR ME: A GUIDE TO BEING YOUR OWN BEST ADVOCATE IN THE WORKPLACE

I first met Julie Hauser in 1996. She'd recently earned a degree in speech communications and was working as a marketer for a nonprofit organization. Always smart about following her interests, Julie accepted a professional position that she would not only be good at but also enjoy. Yet Julie still experienced, as she put it, the shock of being "low man on the totem pole." "When you're in school, you're idealistic about what you think you can accomplish or contribute [on the job]," she said. She'd expected to make contributions early, but learned that her ideas were more likely to be heard "down the road." The staff at Julie's organization was small; there were no mentors who could help her advance. "I had the sense that some people wanted to keep new hires in their place, but I also felt I'd have to pay my dues," Julie explained. "They weren't going to let [recent] college grads handle the big stuff right away." Maybe you're familiar with or even a little scared about

experiencing a situation similar to what Julie faced. One that would be not only disillusioning, but disheartening. One that would leave you no other choice but to wait patiently until your work began to "speak for itself."

Julie wasn't willing to wait that long or risk developing a negative attitude that would, in the end, leave her miserable as well as unproductive. So she decided to take action. She enrolled in a course I was teaching at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, a course that would teach her how to be her own best advocate in the workplace. The topic? Be Your Own Mentor. Within one year of taking the course, Julie sought and accepted a job that was more in line with her writing interests

(working for a small publisher of human resource materials) and soon moved to a better position with KPMG Consulting (now BearingPoint), where she stayed three-and-a-half years. During that time she ultimately decided to change her focus

from written communications to something that would help individuals more directly. In keeping with her interest in human resources, she pursued a master's degree in career counseling. And today, Julie has a job she loves: she is a certified career

counselor who works for Georgetown University, the place she started her self-mentoring journey.

2. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

Like Julie, you are capable of giving yourself permission to do what is necessary and ethical to be your own best advocate in the workplace. Indeed, only you can do this-no one else will do it for you. The best place to start is right here, right now, by

committing to becoming your own mentor. Note the deliberate use of the word "becoming" rather than "being." You will grow into this role. You don't have to have all the answers immediately-just a desire to honor and explore the questions and choices that arise. One of these choices will be the attitude you adopt toward

yourself and your work. Becoming your own mentor means considering your career your business and yourself self-employed. We are all self-employed, says business consultant and author Cliff Hakim, whether or not we are employed by a company. Therefore, he says, we must develop a self-employed attitude. This attitude is independent-we rely on our own initiative-and interdependent-we collaborate with our employers and coworkers to achieve success.

3. WHAT'S A MENTOR?

You may have heard the word "mentor" used to describe someone, usually an older, more experienced person, who serves as a trusted teacher and counselor, especially in a business setting. Books and articles on mentoring frequently point out that the word "mentor" comes from Greek mythology. As you may remember from studying The Odyssey in high school, Mentor was the name of the trusted wise man who protected and educated Odysseus' son Telemachus when Odysseus left to fight the Trojan Wars. Mentor, though, was actually the goddess of wisdom-Athena-in disguise. Odysseus had asked Athena to guide and protect his son while he was away. Athena, disguised as Mentor, became Telemachus' teacher, counselor, and even networker as she guided him in his adult quest to find the father who'd been

missing for ten years. Personally, I find it interesting and illuminating that Mentor

was both male and female. Mentor personified the innate "wisdom energy" of both genders: the feminine energy of intuition combined with the masculine energy of acting on that inner knowing. Think about that-using Mentor as a model, we, too, can call on our own individual mix of male and female energies to be the mentor we always wanted.

4. YOUR PERFECT MENTOR

Consider the role of a business mentor. What does a mentor do? What personal qualities should a mentor have? When asked to do this as an exercise, Julie and the other students in the class found it relatively easy to complete. They suggested qualities such as compassion, being "in the loop," understanding, helping you run the political "gauntlet," being able to listen without judging, encouraging you, broadcasting your successes, and challenging you-sometimes through honest and gentle criticism-to do your best work. In other words, a mentor is a balloon that helps you rise above yourself and a parachute that cushions your falls. Then I asked, "Can you imagine practicing these behaviors on yourself?" A stunned silence filled the room, and everyone grinned. They supposed they could practice these behaviors, they said, but how odd to think of being kind, compassionate, and gentle to themselves! Yet this is what self-mentoring means: treating yourself gently, as would a savvy and skillful, wise and compassionate mentor. When you act as your own mentor, you see challenges as opportunities to try out new skills and enjoy new successes. If one of your efforts fails, you learn what worked and what didn't, and then try again, rather than blame yourself unmercifully for failing or your employer for being unreasonable. Instead of depending on your employer to manage your career, you become aware that you yourself can have the most significant influence on your success. Yet at the same time, you understand that success is based on collaboration with others-and so you come to understand what Cliff Hakim calls working "with" rather than "for" an employer. You decide to become curious and open to new challenges. You welcome change rather than feel threatened by it. When change is as common as it is in today's business world, it's helpful to continuously reconnect with your inner mentor. Compare your ideas of what you thought you knew against what is really happening. Your idea of yourself, of what you like, and of what you think is best for you may change over time. Use your inner mentor's wisdom to navigate your unique career path. Then you will be prepared to accept and succeed at new opportunities that come your way.

5. THE IMPORTANCE OF DRAFTING A DREAM

You can tap into the mentor you have inside yourself, the trusted guide who has the qualities of compassion, understanding, challenge, encouragement, and celebration. Tapping the mentor within begins when you consider your work in the context of your career/life dream. What is the touchstone of your career/life dream-the thing that makes you happy and the thing you must do to feel fulfilled?

------------------------------------

The remainder of this article can be found at http://www.workinfo.com/free/downloads/180.htm