How to Set Goals With Your Mentor That You Will Pursue

A mentoring goal is the thing you and your mentor return to at every meeting. Goals fade when they belong to someone else or describe an activity instead of a change. This guide covers three tests for a good goal, a light method, four examples and how the goal fits your program’s forms.

Three tests for a goal you will pursue

• State, not activity. “Have more one-on-ones with senior people” is an activity; you can do it and be no further forward. “Know by March whether I want to move into management, and have told my manager” is a state. Ask: if I achieved this, what would be different, and who would notice?
• Yours, not expected. First goals are often borrowed from a manager, the program’s example, or what sounds serious. Ask: would I still want this if nobody ever asked about it?
• Fitted to the time. Six monthly meetings is about six hours with your mentor, plus your own work between. “Become a confident public speaker” does not fit. “Give the next team presentation without notes and get written feedback from two people” does.

Here is an example. “Improve my leadership skills” becomes “run the weekly team meeting myself for two months, and get my manager’s honest view on how it went.” Now there is something to do this week and something to check in two months.

A five-step method without paperwork

1. Draft alone. Before the first meeting, write one or two goals in plain words, with the situation behind each. Do not polish.
2. Refine in the first meeting. Read the draft to your mentor and let them question it. Leave with the revised goal written down in your words.
3. Agree one dated step per meeting. Not a full plan: one thing you will finish before the next meeting.
4. Review at every meeting. Two minutes at the start: did the step happen, what did you learn, is the goal still right? Skipping this is how goals fade.
5. Change on evidence. If you learned the goal is wrong, change it. If you had a bad two weeks, keep it.

1. Review last step
2. Discuss what you learned
3. Check the goal still fits
4. Agree next dated step
5. Do it before next meeting

One goal

Your mentor asks sharpening questions, says whether the goal looks realistic, and shares how a similar goal went for them. They do not set the goal, find you the job, or make the final decision. How to prepare for a mentoring meeting covers bringing the goal into each meeting without turning it into a status report.

Goals for four kinds of mentee

An employee, three years in, feeling stuck.

• First draft: “Get promoted.”
• Why it fails: the decision is not yours, and the program ends before the next promotion round.
• Better: “By the end of the program, have a written list of what the next level requires, my manager’s honest assessment of where I am against it, and one gap I am visibly working on.”
• First step: ask the manager for a 30-minute conversation about the next level, and write down what they say.

A final-year student choosing a direction.

• First draft: “Figure out my career.”
• Why it fails: too large to act on, and no way to know when it is done.
• Better: “Talk to three people doing the two jobs I am considering, and by the end of the semester know which one I am applying for and why.”
• First step: ask the mentor for one introduction, and find the other two through the university’s alumni network.

A founder in an accelerator.

• First draft: “Grow faster.”
• Why it fails: an activity with no end, and mostly not about the founder.
• Better: “Decide, with evidence, whether to keep both customer segments or drop one, and have made that call before demo day.”
• First step: pull the numbers for both segments and bring them to the next meeting.

A professional returning after a career break.

• First draft: “Get back to where I was.”
• Why it fails: it measures against a past that has moved on, and it is more anxiety than goal.
• Better: “Within four months, be current on the two tools my field adopted while I was away, and have had one conversation with a hiring manager about what a realistic first role looks like.”
• First step: ask the mentor what changed in the field in the last three years, and write down the two things that matter most.

Each better version names something to do this month, and each depends on the mentee’s actions, not someone else’s decision.

When the goal changes

Expect it. The first goal is written with the least information you will ever have, so changing it means the meetings are working.

• Change on evidence, not mood. The role is not what you thought, your situation moved, or the goal was your manager’s. A discouraging week is not a reason.
• Say it at the start of a meeting: “I think the goal has changed, and here is why.”
• Rewrite it with the same three tests. A goal changed at month four should be smaller than the one it replaces.
• Update the record in the program’s form, so the closing feedback refers to the goal you pursued.

A student who set out to choose between two careers and found by month three she wanted neither did not fail. The first goal did its job; the new one, to find and test a third option, only existed because of it.

Goals and the program’s forms

Structured programs often ask for a form at the start, a note after each meeting, a mid-program check-in and closing feedback.

• Start. Write the refined goal from the first meeting. If you must answer before meeting your mentor, write the draft and update it later.
• Post-meeting note. One line on the step you agreed and whether the last one happened. On Mentornity, meeting forms open from the meeting page.
• Mid-program check-in. Say honestly whether the goal is still right. Coordinators use these answers to spot pairs that need help.
• Closing feedback. Measure against the goal you pursued, changes included. “I set out to do X, learned Y, and ended with Z” is a complete answer.

When the goal lives in your notes, your mentor’s notes and the program’s forms, three people are keeping it alive.