Hey Bright Mind,
How are you this week? Good, poorly or so there? This week has been quite busy for me.
I have spent it applying for jobs, yes. You heard me right. I had a few ‘on the spot’ mentoring and a few 1-2-1s with some young minds under my mentoring programme. Each person is at a different stage and have different areas they are seeking to make a change.
I made a change recently. Doing mentorship across continents isn't so easy. One of my challenges is the limited face to face opportunity to mentor. I have been mentoring young people consistently in the last 8 years. And I sometimes yearn for more physical on ground mentorship because it builds connections and fosters the kind of growth I envisage for my mentees.
Well, I cannot have everything I want because life happens on a regular basis. What I have explored in my mentorship are emails, Google Meets and WhatsApp.
I have noticed that I lose the engagement with my mentees at the early stages when we connect only via WhatsApp messaging and emails.
Now, WhatsApp messaging seems cheap but messages can get lost in transition and there's just something missing when there are no calls.
I decided to review how I engage with my mentees living in Nigeria. They accepted we explore holding the sessions using either WhatsApp calls or Google Meet. I was excited to explore this change especially with a baby who might interrupt sessions, and also knowing that internet connectivity might be a concern.
Irrespective of these identified challenges, I set up the meetings for the sessions. An hour per session to discuss the needs of the mentee and to share knowledge and experiences on different topics tied to the curriculum set for each of them individually.
After the sessions, both parties felt better than previous sessions. I got a thank you, Dr Weyoms. It works and it comes from a desire to change how I do part of my mentorship. I particularly see the difference it makes and how it can make up for not being present physically.
Your mindset can colour what information you take in, what you filter out and how successful you think your change process will be.
How's your mindset like towards your change process?
Because I have a vision for the kind of mentorship I want to deliver, I know where I am heading and I am not spinning out of control. If you don't have a vision, you won't know where you are headed and things will spiral out of control. For example, you want to get into bioinformatics as a medical doctor, if you don't know what skills are required, or who to talk to, then it will be difficult to start.
One other challenge we might have when it comes to change is the resistance to change. If the cost of changing, say going through a career transition to nature photography is greater than staying the same as a sales person in a small food shop, you won't attempt anything.
Predicting your success levels and how much you believe in yourself is very important in your change process. So is accepting who you are right now and not who you would like to be.
How do you judge yourself? Do you have a fixed mindset about things or see yourself as one who's ready to grow irrespective of the challenges?
If you would like to stop telling yourself you won't achieve your goals, then one way to do this, is to build your neuroplasticity. This will encourage you to do more learning, adaptation and make you feel more confident.
So let see how you answer to these:
1. What new topic, skill, idea or thoight have I learned this week, last week or last month?
2. When was the last time I worked on solving a problem, be it a puzzle, word searches or fixing a tap?
3. When did I last use hand brain skills such as writing, drawing, cooking a new recipe etc?
If you answer, not much, Dr Weyoms to all of these, you can start today by building neuroplasticity by reading, building your vocabulary, learn a language etc, which is doing things to keep your brain active.
This hopefully might help you look at your change process with a different lens.
I hope you find this useful.
Stay safe and well.
From Uli by Dr Weyoms