Becoming a mentor: Part 2 ‘The unusual discomfort’

I could write this series in such a way that I emit all the vulnerable details to portray a more digestible take on mentoring. Or I could tell the truth. Today I had my second training session with CMN and I cried*.

I’m not entirely sure why yet but the feeling sat with me all day as I took a train across the country to attend interviews in our Glasgow office. Something personal was triggered for me today and I’m not sure what yet but maybe the programme will help me understand this feeling.

I met my fellow mentors for the first time today (I attended the first session for another cohort due to being away). It immediately became clear that everyone’s partnership is different. It’s a shame we didn’t have more time to trade stories. However this sharing did spark a feeling I didn’t anticipate, competitiveness. I found myself wondering if I was ‘behind’. Had I done enough? Had we met frequently enough? Had we spoken about the right things?

We focused a lot today on asking open questions. Undertaking an exercise in sharing and questioning it occurred to me that this programme must be particularly challenging in the creative industries as we’re all paid to solve problems for a living! I found myself explaining design to William** when we met last week as simply ‘problem solving’ as that’s fundamentally what I believe. I wonder how well this innate trait lends itself to coaching?

At the end of the session today I had a conversation. In this conversation it was reflected that both myself and William are quite similar in how we’re approaching the programme. We’re both a little scared! It struck me as interesting and got me wondering if we’d been paired on more than simply our skillsets (William wants to study graphic design, I did study graphic design).

I think the overarching feeling I’m left with today is that I’m going to have to work hard to balance what I give and what I get from this programme. And ultimately I may not get exactly what I expected to get. But that may not be a bad thing.

*None of the content delivered on CMN explicitly upset me. It was a great session!

**I’ve received William’s consent to my writing about my experiences.