Why You're the Mentor Someone Needs
Published: 2022-12-15 20:59:30

---
title: Why You're the Mentor Someone Needs
published: true
description: When are you ready to mentor? Your experience level shouldn't determine whether you're ready to mentor. You're ready as soon as you want to contribute to developer communities.
tags: 
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/27t4q4vqsgpwjajro72n.jpg
---

You might be a bit hesitant to mentor someone, but trust me, you're likely ready! The #1 thing to know is that no, you don't need to be an expert in anything! Everyone's path in learning is different. Someone is looking for their next step to be where you are, just as you were once working towards where you're at. No one is more qualified to share with others how you arrived where you are now than you.

I've facilitated flash mentoring event, monthly coding classes, and weekend workshops where many of those who showed up to mentor were mentoring for the first time. They did great and it's always a special experience to watch everyone connect with the community!

So what do you need to know to be a mentor? Think back to all the things you've learned in your career, wherever you might be now. What kind of support would you have liked from a mentor or colleague? What things seem so obvious now that you wish you knew yesterday, or years ago?

Chances are you're not thinking of any specific technical skill or knowledge. You might be thinking of helpful things like:

- Someone to bounce ideas off of without fear of judgement
- Someone to help you through a motivational slump
- Advice on how to handle professional relationships
- Help improving your communication skills and working on self-advocating
- Access to resources or professional/social networks
- Varied perspectives or a sanity check
- Someone to empathize and help you have empathy for yourself through learning
- A boost to help you persevere when you felt like giving up

These are all just a handful of things you're able to provide as a great mentor! Being a good mentor is not an innate skill that you're automatically good at. You can't effectively mentor by knowing enough things. Even though you may be knowledgeable, telling others what to do or what has worked for you won't necessarily help them grow.

Mentoring takes practice and continuous learning. It takes a willingness to be vulnerable and admit when you don't know something. It takes establishing a safe environment for those around you to grow and make mistakes. By undergoing these practices, you can help normalize the unavoidable pains of learning that we all experience.

Through mentoring, you can expand your network, reiterate your knowledge set, and develop new skills. You also get the opportunity to be a part of building communities that can run on supportive growth. If you are presented with the opportunity to mentor someone who is a part of an underrepresented group, you can benefit by learning to identify and overcome your own internal biases while helping diversify your community. These are all things that help a community grow- we are stronger when we work together. We can help be the shoulders for others to stand on.

I encourage you all to be on the lookout for someone who needs your support. You can help in a long-term mentoring relationship or in small moments of learnings or wins that they can carry into other situations. By supporting each other through mentoring, we can all make way for collective growth.