Mentor/Father, you are going to need a good dose of perseverance to influence mentee’s (or children or others).
Perseverance is the ability to be patient and restful with another when everything around you is screaming for attention.
Often we find ourselves in times of stress and anguish, reacting to people in our lives with hasty anger and punishment in one form or another, without having given them the time to communicate with us what they are experiencing.
“Don’t bug me!” is sometimes the message we convey by our intolerance and short snide response to an enquiry or when they show a lack of keeping up with us. Patient perseverance involves a refusal to retaliate, a refusal to be overwhelmed, to permit my demeanour toward a mentee, to be affected by my surroundings.
We may say the wrong thing or become sarcastic when we are stressed and impatient. Or we just refuse to communicate and rather communicate a sulky attitude – “I will punish and show you!” attitude.
Basically, we reject the person and remove them from our space, by the defence mechanisms of our emotions. The result is, more than likely, going to be withdrawal and even despair from the mentee. It will breed a lack of trust, feelings of inferiority, counter dependence, inadequacy, and low self-esteem.
Bear in mind, that if you are doing it once, then you are doing it in other forms on most occasions as well.
Perseverance is a state of character and heart that is a characteristic and discipline actively part of your make–up as a mentor/father, but also as a mature human being.
It means being able to be merciful under even extreme pressure. It is not a passive resignation, but a conscious knowledge that everyone is on a journey. That everyone has the need to be significant and accepted and loved and acknowledged.
It means to exercise understanding and patience toward others, to be merciful. It means we have self-restraint before moving to any form action.
The result is giving the mentee, the sense of being accepted and important, conveying by our attitude and demeanour, that they are valuable.
One man that I viewed as a mentor, never seemed to have time for me. Always, always, he would have some excuse or other that there was a pressing need that didn’t allow him to listen, understand or spend any time with me. People around me who would witness these encounters would ask why he was rejecting me like this. That is exactly what it is – rejection.
I have learnt that even though I may be busy or not agree with the individual, but having an empathetic attitude of interest and genuine perseverance, allowed me to influence them so that they trust and receive from me, not for any accomplishments, but for the fact that I made time to listen, understand and accept them.
Over the years I have seen and experienced so many leaders that do the same. If it’s an inconvenient time, say so, but give the mentee or person, an alternative, to show and impart a sense of their value and uniqueness.
Do you have time for people? Ever?
When you do is it always on your terms?
Are your relationships suffering because you don’t have time for significant and insignificant others in your life?
Is it irritating, or do you take time, to listen to their feelings and experiences?
Are people around you sensitive and removed because of your harsh, closed, I’m-not-interested attitude toward them?
Or do others feel you are approachable, interested and involved in who they are what they are going through, and what insights they have to offer?
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