What to Talk About With Your Mentor or Mentee

As a health and wellness practitioner, a mentor relationship can help you build your practice, achieve your professional goals, and become a better therapist.

In fact, 77 percent of female mental health practitioners who responded to a recent SimplePractice survey agreed mentorship programs are critical to their career success.

A great mentor can offer insights and support you in achieving your goals and expanding your therapeutic modalities. And, a mentorship where you are providing guidance to a mentee may inspire you to think beyond your own accomplishments and provide a new point of view. 

In a mutually beneficial mentorship, both mentor and mentee will experience life-changing, burnout-busting, and career-boosting benefits. 

To get the most out of a mentorship, establish the foundation for the relationship from the very first conversations you have with your mentor or mentee.

The initial conversations with your mentor can set the tone and indicate how the mentor-mentee relationship will function.

You may be wondering how to create the foundations for a successful mentorship relationship. Starting with the topics and questions that are important to you—and to them—helps instill a collaborative partnership and establish clear communication from the get-go.

Topics to Discuss During Your First Conversations With Your Mentor or Mentee

If you want to get the most out of your mentorship, some key topics to address from the get-go include:

Expectations

During your initial meeting with your mentor, it’s important to discuss expectations. 

And this is equally valuable for each person in the mentorship.

While you’ll want to share what you’re expecting from working with the mentor or mentee, it’s equally important to discuss what they’re expecting out of the relationship as well.

This may include the time commitment you’re each expecting, and also this next one…

Communication Frequency

In addition to talking about expectations for the relationship as a whole, you’ll want to talk about expectations around communication. 

This includes how frequently you’re going to communicate, how you’re going to communicate—for instance, email or video chat or phone calls—and any boundaries either of you have around communication. 

For example, one of you might ask that there is no reaching out on nights and weekends unless it is an emergency, since time off the clock to spend with pets, significant others, family members, and/or kids is important, too.

Areas of Focus and Guidance Needs

In order to effectively work together, your mentor or mentee needs to understand your professional background and expertise, and you theirs. 

That way, you can identify in what ways your mentor can best support you or you can support your mentee. 

During your first meeting, make sure to give them a rundown of your career journey and how you got to where you are today—and ask them to do the same.

Your Specific Goals

People decide to have mentor-mentee relationships for different reasons. 

For example, you might want a mentor who can advise you on how to build a private practice from the ground up—or they might be looking for a mentor to help them find a better balance between taking care of patients and taking care of themselves. 

Make sure to discuss your mentorship goals during your first conversation. That way, you both understand what you’re hoping to get out of the relationship and vice versa—and you can each act accordingly.

Questions to Ask Your Mentor or Mentee

Pre-planning the topics to raise during your initial mentorship conversations is an excellent idea. 

Take out your notebook and jot down a list of topics and questions. You can also add them electronically in the notepad app on your mobile phone. 

Asking strong questions during your initial mentorship conversations will help you get the information you each need to effectively structure your mentorship. 

And while the “right” questions will vary from person to person (and from situation to situation), some questions to consider asking include:

Questions to Clarify Expectations 

1. As a mentor (or mentee), what do you expect from me?
2. From your perspective, what would make this mentorship a successful one?
3. What are you hoping to gain from this mentor-mentee relationship?

Questions to Determine Communication Frequency 

1. How do you prefer to communicate? (For example, do you prefer email, phone calls, text messages, video calls, or in-person meetings?)
   
2. How often do you see us communicating?
   
3. Do you prefer to limit our communications to designated meeting times—or are you open to more frequent, informal communication? (For example, sending text messages with questions in between meetings.)
   
4. Do you have any boundaries around communication—and, if so, what are they?

Questions Around Areas of Focus and Guidance Needs 

1. What career accomplishment are you the most proud of, and why?
2. What skills and/or education have been the most beneficial for you in your career? Why?
3. What’s something you know now that you wish you would have known when you were starting your career?
4. What has been the most challenging experience you’ve had with a client—and how did you overcome it?*
5. What has been the most rewarding experience you’ve had with a client—and why was it so rewarding?*
6. What do you enjoy most about being a practitioner?
7. What aspect of private practice do you find most challenging?

*For these questions, make sure to let your mentor or mentee know that you’re not asking for any them to share any identifying details or information that would jeopardize client confidentiality,

Questions for Your Specific Goals (as a Mentee)

1. My goal is [X]. As a mentor, how do you think you can best help me hit that goal?
2. Do you have any goals for this mentorship relationship—and, if so, what are they?
3. In your experience, what do you think is the most effective way to reach [X] goal?
   
4. I would love accountability as I move towards [X] goal. Are you comfortable acting as an accountability partner—and holding me accountable by [X]?
   
5. My long-term goal is [X]. In your experience, what do you think my immediate/short-term goals should be to get me closer to [X]?
6. What can I do to make it easier for you to support me as I work towards hitting [X] goal?

Questions for Your Specific Goals (as a Mentor)

1. What is your goal, and how do you think I can best help you hit that goal?
2. Do you have any goals for this mentorship relationship—and, if so, what are they?
3. What have been some of the challenges you have faced while trying to reach [X] goal?
   
4. Accountability is important as you move towards [X] goal. Is having me as an accountability partner something you are hoping for? And if so, how do you see that playing out?
   
5. My long-term goal is [X]. Do you have a long-term goal in mind or is that something you are hoping to develop through our mentoring relationship? 
6. What can I do to make it easier for you to discuss challenges with me as you work towards hitting [X] goal?

4 More Tips for Effective Mentorship Conversations

Want more insights into how to make the most of your initial conversations with your mentor or mentee? 

Here are a few more tips to ensure the process is as smooth—and mutually beneficial—as possible:

1. Prepare for Your Initial Conversation

The more you prepare for your first conversation with your mentor or mentee, the better it will go—so make sure to do your research and jot down your questions beforehand. 

Research? Yes. We recommend you do some initial research on your mentor or mentee to get a better idea of their experience. 

2. Get to Know Your Mentor or Mentee’s Life Beyond Their Career 

While you may aim to keep it professional and not cross over into “too personal” territory with your mentor or mentee during your initial conversations, you also don’t want the conversations to feel transactional.  Showing an interest in getting to know them on a personal level will enrich the quality of your mentor-mentee relationship.

3. Ask Specific Questions

If you want specific insights tailored to your clinical career, make sure to ask specific questions. If you ask your mentor or mentee vague or general questions, you may receive vague, general answers in return. 

4. Don’t Demand Too Much, Too Soon

You might have a long list of things you hope to get from your mentorship. For example, if you’re a mentee, you may want advice on defining your niche, ideas for creating your authentic therapy brand and attracting new clients, coaching on how to market yourself as a thought leader and how to land speaking gigs at conferences, and insights into optimal treatment approaches for specific patient diagnoses. 

Alas if you demand insights into all of those things during your first conversation with your mentor or mentee, chances are they may get overwhelmed. 

Don’t ask for too much, too soon. And, if you’re the mentor, aim to cover topics and insights in a digestible way.

Instead, use these initial conversations to lay the foundation for your mentorship. Then, as your relationship progresses, work together to tackle one goal at a time—for each of you. 

Mutually beneficial mentorships help both mentor and mentee to enrich their lives and grow their careers. 

Grow Your Practice—and Career—With SimplePractice

To support practitioners in connecting and finding mentors, SimplePractice launched a new mentorship pilot program to help pair health and wellness mentors with fellow practitioners seeking mentorship.

And, when it comes to building and managing your practice, another tip that can help you level-up and simplify your administrative work is using a practice management system like SimplePractice.

The preferred practice management software for more than 200,000  practitioners, SimplePractice has all the features you need to effectively run your practice—including billing, scheduling, insurance, and a secure client portal—all combined in one easy-to-use platform.

Want to experience how SimplePractice can help you more effectively build and manage your private practice? Sign up for a free 30-day trial today.

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