Mentoring

Hey Guys,

I have posted before on the importance of parents/mentor before (Parents/Mentor) but I want to steer away from the parents aspect and focus more on the importance of having mentors in the work place, and life. So first is work place, I have a great mentor for the business program. I eventually want to go into coaching, mentoring and consulting but that is down the line. My mentor has started to showed me what steps I need to take and has helped me focus my education and life for that point. Then there is a life mentor which is someone who basically just helps you stay focused, helps you through issues and helps you learn from the mistakes they have made and you have made. I would consider myself blessed and say I have a few people in a 'mentorship' position who on a pretty regular basis will help me stay focused in life.

First, business mentor / work mentor. I will always encouraged anyone who is going into the work force to get a mentor of someone who has done it before. We live in a society that is not longer just going to accept that you have a degree to know what you are doing. We are at a time where there is a larger amount of educated people and fewer and fewer jobs. So what can you do to separate yourself? Something my mentor told me was this, take people to coffee. Find out what you want to do, find the best in the business and take him or her to coffee. Ask advice, come with questions and seek contacts and networking. Maybe I just did not think about it but it seems like a great idea I had not thought of before.  This is the importance of a mentor, someone to help you get on track with your career. How often do you and I feel like we have no idea where we are going, what we are doing, or what we should do for the rest of my life. OR maybe that is just me that gets fixated on that kind of stuff... BUT I really do not think it is, I think anyone at my age (20ish) has a problem with worrying about the future, heck I bet ANYONE in there life usually has a problem with this. SPOILER ALERT HERE IS THE SOLUTION: Get a mentor, get someone to help you think this out and find someone who is knowledgeable. It really is that simple (kinda of) but just having someone to help you think things out and find a direction is an immeasurable amount of value. DO IT. I feel like this is ad-placement but it is for something I truly believe in and I am passionate about.

Second, a life mentor. I know this sounds a little bit more strange but let me take you through a series of questions and if anyone of them you answer yes to you should get a mentor. Struggle with direction in life? Seem to be making the same mistakes over and over? Not sure what you want to do in life? Trying to figure out who you are? Trying to figure out how to overcome your weakness? Those are just a few and there are a ton other I could ask but you get my drift right? I wish that I had mentor through my depression. That is one of the main reason why we, and I need mentors is because when the tough times start coming we need someone who has gone through or knows/seen someone go through it. As much as we pretend to know everything in life and be these strong people we are actually pretty weak and scared. Lets not pretend like this world is not a scary place. I mean heck I am nearing graduation and I am already freaking out. But I hope this is normal and that I am not just making a big deal out of nothing.

That is all I wanted to share today was to get anyone who is reading this regardless of age to try and find a mentor, try to find someone who wants to and is willing to see you improve. I think this is one area we need to be a little selfish. It is great to think about other people and try an help everyone out all the time but sometimes we need to make sure we help ourselves first. So find a mentor for life and for work, gain knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Then one day pass it on!

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka

Belonging

Hey Guys,

Tonight Trinity Western University won the CIS National Championship. We have the best volleyball team in the country (Canada) so take that anyone who goes to any other university! It was a great game we absolutely destroyed Brandon in three straight sets. There is very few experiences that I have found yet that then watching your team win and be the best in the country. On that though, I started to think what does it mean to actually be apart of something and what impact does that have on us and a community.

It was a amazing thing for our community, we all came together under the Spartan name. It is something we always do. When there was the female soccer nationals we all came together when they had a chance to win. We did it when the guys soccer nationals were here even when they lost. Now we have done it again to support our men's volleyball. They did not disappoint in anyway which was great! It was great to see people from all sides of our community come out. People who normally would never EVER come to a Spartan game came on out. I am kind of sorry for the people that did not get to experience it for themselves!

Something I noticed though was the amount people felt like they were apart of something great. I see why now people get so passionate about sports team. It makes sense it gives you this sense of being apart of something and accomplishment. Today I feel like I won even though I probably did nothing except lose my voice. Maybe I am over thinking this all but today I 'technically' accomplished nothing. I had a great time, had a great experience but did not accomplish a task, a goal or anything.

I am not saying do not support teams or your school because its meaningless, no I am not saying that. I am saying though I can see how it is pretty easy to get caught up in something where you feel like you belong. When I was in grade 10-11 I got addicted to World of Warcraft because that was a place that I felt like I belong, that I had a purpose and something to accomplish. It is easy to look back at that time and see wow that was stupid but during that it seemed normal. When going through depression I wanted to cling on to anything to feel apart of something. For me I would sit in TWUSA all day and try an feel apart of something or feel like I was making a difference! Turns out I began just sitting around trying to be apart of something.

I still think it is a great thing to be involved and belong to a lot of different clubs, organizations, sports teams and faith groups. However there is always a air of caution that is needed that it does not overtake your life and become 'your' life. How often do we see people get consumed by their work? or consumed by their hobby? or consumed by something that makes them feel wanted and a place they feel important? It happens a lot, so do not let it happen to you :)

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka

Pride

~ Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals. ~

- Fulton J. Sheen

Something I suffer with and something I believe is that the majority of guys and girls in our generation suffer/struggle with pride. Pride can be a good thing or a bad thing but is rarely is it a positive thing. Let me explain that statement. Pride is a good thing when you are trying to fake confidence, trying to hide your own insecurities and show the world that everything is fine. Pride is a bad thing when we actually want help, when we are fearsome about things in life and when we do not believe we are good enough. Pride is rarely positive unless it is pride is a school, or pride in a faith you have or pride is a positive change (ending slavery for example). However, for the most part pride is a negative aspect of our human nature.

When I was going through depression something I noticed which lines up with this quote is that at the peak of my depression my pride was the highest. Being a guy and going through depression is a tough thing because in this society we are shown what a guy should be like. Or maybe it is my own image of what a guy should be but we should be strong, courageous and also should not let this phase us. But how does depression and pride play into this? Well it is simple depression can start as simple as believing we do not fit the mold that society has for us. Pride is what keeps us trying to pretend we are more then we are. Take a second to evaluate your own life how often does pride come in the way of being vulnerable. I mean I can count on my hand the number of times it has for me, the problem is I have gained a lot of hands along the way. 

Even after depression and in the recovery of it I have noticed that pride is still a fault in my life even though depression might not be. I find myself whenever I get scared or nervous or loss confidence I resort to pride because it is a wall I can and have put up. I believe I am getting better with this because the first step in getting over something is being able to acknowledge when something is happening. I am starting to notice now when I am getting prideful and in return it allows me to realize that I am scared of something. It is good to finally get to the point in your life when you can use pride to recognize your weaknesses. 

So I want to conclude with this and go back to my main point, pride is not a great thing. The 'good' aspects of it are not actually great things they more entail being fake and not real. Who really wants to be someone they are not? Great statement eh? In a lot of ways I think we all want to be someone more or someone we are not because that is what we are taught in our society that we are not good enough. I guess my warning to you is this, do not let pride be your scapegoat in this situation. Otherwise people will not be able to help you and you will not be able to help yourself. Hopefully you guys take a lesson from me instead of having to experience it yourself. Let you control your pride instead of letting your pride control you.

Lastly I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who is reading and who has been following my blog. I would like to encourage you guys to comment if you have any questions or message me if you want to know more about anything!

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka