Key Points from #mentorshipmonday
For the month of November, WIA featured #mentorshipmonday and #motivationmonday. WIA highlighted four influential women who are part of our mentorship program. These women are leaders in their careers and have worked hard to achieve greatness at many levels. Our membership and directors have come to rely on these mentors in many ways. If you missed the four #mentorshipmonday posts, visit our website and feel empowered, excited and motivated.
From our four #mentorshipmondays we found a few key takeaways. No matter where you are in your career, you always need to be open to learning, have resilience and maintain personal and professional balance.
As Trish shared in week three of #mentorshipmonday, mistakes happen. Own it, apologize, fix it if you can, learn and then MOVE ON. Learn from all mistakes, even the little ones. Know and understand when you made a mistake. We all make them so don’t dwell, learn.
Adele in week four put it very simply. Network with people outside agriculture, it is amazing what you can learn from other industries.
Learn constantly, even later in your career, it is key in bringing joy to all stages of your career. Shelley from week three said though she knew what she was meant to do, she learnt later in her career what truly brought her joy and immense gratification.
Diversify yourself in your learning - on the job, personal growth, relationships and outside volunteer organizations. Learning comes in many forms. Embrace them all.
Resilience is a key message we heard from all the four mentors. However in week one, Penny really set the stage in stating that though we have mentors and people who support us, no one will care about your career as much as you do. You need to embrace the opportunity in front of you, work hard and achieve those goals.
Trust your gut and be resilient. Only you can be the driver behind your growth. If you don’t like the direction of your career, reflect, set goals and redirect it. Even when you have people in our corner cheering us on, we need to be the drive to make the changes.
As Adele said, don’t be afraid to say “yes I can do that” and figure it out later. Take chances, life is boring if we don’t take a chance now and then. Also take time to reflect, if it doesn’t excite you, move one. Adapt to all challenges and changes that may present themselves. Never stick to one plan.
If you find yourself struggling or feeling doubtful, Trish says not to be too hard on yourself. Too easily we take failures personally. We need to rise above these challenges, be strong and understanding. In the end it will make us even better leaders.
One message we heard from all mentors was about work life balance and how “self-care” is key. Be it a group of girlfriends, exercise, family time or even setting work boundaries. We all need a break from time to time. Balance is a juggling act and we need to know when work needs more time and when your personal life needs more time.
But most of all, help support other women - we’re in it together! Be someone you want to be around - inside and outside work. Let’s rise to the top together. All four of our mentors are leaders and know that they didn’t get to where they are without support from others.
If you have any questions about our mentorship program, please reach out and get in touch with our mentorship committee!