Emerging Leaders Blog: Personal Wellbeing & Finding a Mentor

by ELP Guest Blogger Aimee Jewell

Fact: No one will EVER be perfect at everything.

The sooner we realize that and stop striving towards unattainable perfection, the sooner we can focus on certain areas of our lives and hammer out the negatives.

In session three of the Emerging Leaders Program, we discussed goals, wellbeing and life-balance, and mentoring. Life-balance isn’t always easy to achieve, but it becomes a lot easier when we know the areas where we’re not putting forth enough effort. “Are your goals bringing satisfaction and happiness into your life?” Chris asked each of us as we began the session.  By taking the “Wellbeing” assessment in our text, written by Tom Rath and Jim Harter, each individual learned what aspects of life they were taking care of, and what they were overlooking.

It’s about balance.

For me, the “wellbeing” sector that I neglect is my health. I wake up, go to one of my three part-time jobs, run home to hang out with my family for a bit, grab dinner with a friend or two, go to ten thousand meetings and/or graduate school classes, go to bed for roughly six hours, and then wake up to do it again. My social, career, and community areas of my overall wellbeing are far more important to me than my physical and financial wellbeing. But this isn’t something I necessarily want.

Learning where your shortcomings fall can be hard for some, but for me, it’s just a matter of fact. While I attempt to network my way around the city of Louisville and figure out what kind of full-time career I’d like, I know that I put my health on the back burner. (But for the record, it is something that I’d like to change.) Chris, our leader, said it best: 

“It’s not about how much time you have, but what’s important to you.”

Finding a mentor

After discussing life-balance, we moved on to examining mentors and the mentor-mentee relationship. I have been blessed to have wonderful role models in my life thus far that act as advisors throughout my trails and tribulations in the “real world.”

Some, however, are not so lucky and are unfamiliar with the mentor concept. As examined in our session, “Mentoring is a voluntary relationship that has a beneficial effect on someone’s attitudes, behaviors, values, and quality of life by offering knowledge, insight, perspective, and wisdom.” Our assignment before our next meeting is to find someone who we want to cultivate a mentor relationship with and reach out to them. 

My theory is you can never have enough role models, as long as you take the time to nurture the relationships accordingly.

Do you have a mentor? If not, who is someone that you look up to, be it in your workplace, out in the community, or even just in your friend group? Ask them to be your guru throughout a particular life transition. It helps, I promise. 

About Aimee Jewell

Aimee is graduate student at Bellarmine University and a participant/guest blogger for the Fall 2013 Emerging Leaders Program. She will be blogging about her experience with the ELP throughout the fall.