During a mentorship, setting goals is key to getting the most out of the time you have together. It’s part of what sets it apart from other types of relationships. After all, you applied for a reason! We recommend everyone who is part of a WWC mentorship pairing start with discussing their goals for the experience. Here are a few ways to get started. 

Keep It Professional

Within the context of WWC’s mentorship program, we want you to focus on your professional goals. While some goals (i.e. “get better at public speaking” or “read more books”) may help you in both your personal and professional life, it’s good to hone in on the aspects of the goal that particularly pertain to your career development, which speaks to our next point.

Make It Specific

Y’all know that in your personal life goals like “get healthy” or “spend less time on social media” don’t really work. (Especially when that TikTok algorithm is algorithm-ing.) Specificity is key to creating a good career goal too. In the examples above, you might zero in on the truest thing for you right now by thinking about what you really want to accomplish. For “get better at public speaking” maybe your short-term goal is to nail an upcoming presentation and your long-term goal is to deliver keynote speeches. And as for reading more, think about how many books or articles you’d like to read, what types of content matter to you, and to what end. Consider creating a statement like “I want to do (goal) by (date) in order to (hit specific target).”

Break It Down

Once you have a goal, break it down into as many steps as you need to. If you want to change fields, for example, maybe your first step is researching which courses or certifications would be most useful for you. Find which tools work for you, whether that’s busting out a color-coded Google Calendar, getting into the knitty gritty with a project-management tool like Airtable, Trello, or Asana, or just sitting down with pen and paper. Mapping out how you are going to reach your goal is a great activity to do with your mentor. We recommend choosing a goal you can accomplish in 30-90 days. We love your big goals, and we want you to set yourself up to win here. 

Create Accountability 

Once you’ve mapped out how you’re going to get from point A to point B, you need to build the discipline to actually get there. Scheduling regular check-ins with your mentor (and popping an agenda in the cal invite while you’re at it) is one way to keep yourself on track. Are you big into collaboration? Consider getting a group of peers together for co-working sessions. These are nice at a coffee shop or co-working space but they can work on Zoom too for your long-distance besties.

Look At The Big Picture

When you get discouraged or bogged down by the day-to-day, it helps to keep an eye on the big picture. How does this short-term goal fit into your medium and long-term goals? Is that promotion a stepping stone to the cushy corner office job? Is devoting 5 hours a week to your side hustle opening the door to full-time entrepreneurship? And beyond that, how do each of your goals serve your purpose? What do you hope to bring to this world? Best believe we all have our mark to make. And guess what? You’re already making it. 

Good luck with all your goals! And never be afraid to pivot. Adapting to your reality is part of being a resilient, ever-growing human. Let us know what you’re working on and if you need any help in our Slack channel.

Written by: Krista White

Edited by: Shaunah Margaret