To make changes takes lots of energy, so having someone in your corner is a big benefit. You need support, encouragement, and accountability. Accountability to a peer mentor is probably the most important step in accomplishing your goal next to taking responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, and actions. It would be worthwhile to take some time to think about what accountability means to you. Take time to identify what negative types of accountability you have experienced. Some of you think of accountability as being controlled, shamed, peer-pressured, or exposed. If you have had toxic coaching from a parent or teacher, you may have these thoughts when you think of accountability. This needs to be challenged if you're going to have a good peer mentoring experience. Accountability is not nagging.
Accountability means being willing to give an account of our lives to someone else. This trust should not be given to just anyone. Accountability is for growth, safety, and empowerment. All of us have been in relationships where we were accountable against our will—to our parents and teachers for example. If there is judgment in accountability, you create a harsh relationship. If you are too forgiving, the goal may not be accomplished. This is why choice is so important. Remember that choice must be made freely and fully to be successful. Accountability can then bring safety. It can empower us to change. It energizes us so we can change. Our peer mentor becomes a mirror. A healthy peer relationship challenges us to change without punishment.
Maximum growth is not possible alone. When you want to change, you need support. A peer mentor can be a support system you put in place for yourself. A good peer mentor might be someone who has achieved what you want to achieve. The relationship should give you a place to think things through. However, the peer mentor is not responsible for the answer or getting things to go right. It is true that our belief about the capabilities of others has a direct impact on their performance, so you want to choose someone that holds you in high regard and vice versa. In a relationship of peer mentoring, the goal is to build each other's self-belief. It has nothing to do with controlling each other. One of the best things we can do for others is to assist them in surpassing us. For people to build their own self-belief, they need to know that their success is due to their own effort. Help each other to have heightened awareness. If you are only giving advice, you are taking responsibility. Ownership comes from choice.
You want to be thinking in coaching terms. According to Coaching for Performance, there are some important qualities of a coach. Coaches are patient, detached, supportive, interested, perceptive, aware, self-aware, attentive, retentive, and good listeners. Problems can only be resolved at the level below that at which they manifest themselves. Notice things and feed them back to the person as something you noticed. Ask them how things are for them. Ask what it looks like for them. Ask them if they want to explore underlying reasons for their behaviors.
Don't suppose that you need to know the answer. When you think you're right about someone else's motivation, it often is an indication of projection. Projection can result in perceiving our own positive and negative traits in another person. We displace our patterns of feelings and behaviors originally experienced with significant figures from childhood.
Many things have to be considered when you want to find a peer mentor to give you support, encouragement, and accountability. Once you have decided you want to achieve a SMART goal, you will want to look for the right person to give you support, encouragement, and hold you accountable while you achieve your goal. It is amazing how just giving permission to someone to ask you how things are going can make a huge difference to your success. It can move you from wishing something would happen to making it happen.
Many of you share the belief system that says, "I'll believe it when I see it." I encourage you to make a major shift to create success by changing your belief system to one that says, "Believe it and you'll see it."
About the Author
Doris Young helps healthcare organizations achieve their goals by setting up peer mentor relationships that work. For more information contact Doris Young at 800.673.8005 or at Doris@DorisYoungAssociates.com.
