July 17, 2021 4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you want to achieve your career goals in life, having a mentor is very important.

Let’s say you want to go from point A to point B in your city. There are three ways you can get there.

The first way is to figure out the way yourself through trial and error. This might include going to every area of the city and going through all the streets yourself. This might be extremely time-consuming and frustrating. So much so that you might end up giving up on your goal. You might quit before you reach your destination.

The second way is to ask for directions. You can ask for directions on the way from random people on the street. You might get to your destination faster than the first way of figuring out the way yourself, but still, you will waste a lot of time.

Different people might give you different directions based on how they know the city. One person might ask you to go straight and take the longer route. Another person might ask you to take a bunch of left and right turns and give you a shortcut. The problem with this method is that you are taking multiple pieces of advice from different people and sometimes they will contradict each other.

The third way and simplest way is to use a GPS app like Maps. A maps app will give you turn-by-turn directions that you just need to blindly follow to get to your destination. You will save time, confusion, frustration and just breeze through the journey. Most importantly, once you have arrived at your destination, you will hear a resounding affirmation that “You have arrived at your destination.”

Related: How to Ask Someone to Be Your Mentor

By now, you might have guessed the message I’m trying to communicate through the above analogy. 

You can figure out the way to get to your destination by yourself, or you can ask for guidance from multiple people along the way, or you can choose to have a mentor who will take you to your destination because the mentor has been on the same path before.

Doing everything by trial and error is not an option anyway. As the saying goes, “It is good to learn from your mistakes, but it is better to learn from other’s mistakes. Life is too short for trial and error.”

A lot of people who are trying to get to their goals do not get a mentor for themselves. Instead, they try to educate themselves by reading books, watching online videos, subscribing to random online courses and asking their friends for advice. This is just like asking for directions from random people on the road. Life is too short for taking so much time in achieving your goals.

The third and best way is to get a mentor. A mentor is like a GPS app. A mentor will give you turn-by-turn directions confidently because the mentor has been on the same path as before.

Related: Five Reasons Why Every Entrepreneur Needs A Great Mentor

A digital mentor is someone who will guide you online on how you should get from where you are to where you want to be.
A mentor’s resources might be in the form of articles, videos, courses, mindmaps or live online training. Just follow one mentor who has already achieved what you are trying to achieve. If you are seeing results with the mentor’s free resources, sign up for the premium resources. If you see more results with the premium resources, sign up for 1-on-1 mentoring, or a mastermind program if the mentor has one. 

Most of my success in the past few years happened because I became part of a few mastermind communities where I can interact with people who are trying to achieve the same goal that I am trying to achieve, or have already achieved a milestone in their long-term goals.

Joining a mastermind community that is led by your digital mentor is the best way to get the mindset of success that the mentor has taken years to achieve. Sometimes, all the knowledge and directions in the world cannot take you to your destination unless you have changed your mindset and framework of thinking. 

Related: This Is Why You Need to Find a Mentor Right Now