Mentors give their time, attention, and resources to develop others. Usually a volunteer activity, mentorship goes above and beyond a person’s formal job requirements. Junior members of any organization seem to intuitively identify and gravitate toward the most impactful mentors, and those mentors — often already quite busy — find the demand from prospective mentees steadily rising. As a consequence, great mentors can easily get overcommitted, overwhelmed, and ultimately less effective in their mentor role.
Don’t Let Mentoring Burn You Out
Mentoring is undoubtedly a high-impact and high-stakes relationship. Mentors give their time, attention, and resources to develop others. Usually a volunteer activity, mentorship goes above and beyond a person’s formal job requirements. But when a mentor is well-intended but too depleted to deliver essential mentor functions as a consequence of burnout, the result is marginal mentoring: dysfunctional or disengaged mentoring that is no longer of value.
If you continue to deplete your energy to mentor, no matter how good your intentions, you will eventually be unable to mentor or help anyone at all. Here are some ways to identify and overcome mentor burnout: Know the signs and routinely evaluate your burnout risk factors, and involve someone to help you identify when you’re showing symptoms. Conserve your mentoring efforts by finding ways to maximize your time while broadening your reach. Change your approach to make mentoring fun and energy generating. Finally, talk about burnout openly to model self-awareness and self-care.