Although some strategies may help you achieve your career goals

I have been dancing since the age of two. When asked about my career aspirations, there is no hesitation before saying “I want to be a dancer.” Being a dancer means putting all other distractions aside, and focusing on my craft. Currently, I dedicate over forty hours a week to dance, which is a schedule that requires sacrifice. When I am dancing, the rest of the world fades away, slipping out of my mind with relaxed importance. For that moment in time, I am completely free, wholly focused on my goals, letting me know dance is what I’m meant to do. With this realization comes a responsibility to myself and the work I have put into improving my craft thus far, and I know I must seek out the best opportunities for growth and continued learning.

After discussing future’s plan with Amanda, she discussed her future plans of becoming Human Resources Director in ten years. Career development and planning serves five essential purpose: encourage, develop new skills, alleviate plateauing, satisfy employment, and increase employment. My ultimate goal when developing a model a career planning for Amanda, I would want to use the Waterloo University Model. I would want to model each essential factors of the key points stages. These stages include

Mentoring: is the process of a more experienced person advising and guiding a less experienced (and usually younger) person, typically a colleague.

Mentoring involves a manager passing on his/her knowledge and expertise to an employee. Typically, the employee has a mentor who is at management level but not directly involved in his or her work area, so that issue s can be discussed in an impartial and confidential manner.

One of the great things about mentoring is that it is something that has been around for ages. In fact, its origins can be traced back to the Greeks and is even found in the ancient legend of Odysseus. Mentoring occurs when one person elects to pass their knowledge onto another person.

Clutterbuck & Megginson (1999, p.17) describe mentoring as being like ‘standing in front of a mirror with a trusted other, who can help you see things that you do not know how to see, or that have become too familiar for you to notice’. It is a helping relationship between an individual with potential and an individual with expertise. This multi-dimensional relationship is a partnership between those in similar roles, who can support each other. A number of roles of the mentor have been listed by Bolton (2010, p.193): role model, enabler, teacher, encourager, counsellor, befriender, facilitator, coach, confidante, supporter and ‘un-learner’. To be successful roles and responsibilities of those involved need to be clear and they need to be matched to each other and understand expectations of them.

My mother once told me I was born to dance. Ballet, jazz, and hip hop nourished me from the time I was three years old. Whether helping my parents clean or walking in the grocery store, my feet sashayed beneath me to an unknown rhythm. Some of my earliest memories occur in a small studio in a converted barn, where I spent hours at the barre. Unlike performance schools depicted on reality television, my dance studio required less excessive makeup and more polished black leotards and pink tights (we did, however, have a fair share of screaming stage moms).

"Mentoring is a special quality, skill set and attitude," she says. "The benefits are not only between the mentor and mentee, but the future generations."

It takes a lot of commitment to be a mentor, an appropriate meeting time needs to be discussed between mentor and mentee so that it doesn't conflict with family, school, and/or social life. Mentors are usually provided for: troubled teens, young children with busy parents that work, children or teens with special needs such as Autism or ADHD, or anyone under or over the age of 18 who needs to have one on one time with someone they trust and can talk to confidentially.

Growing up was never easy for me, but I did not let that stop me from pursuing my ballet career. I didn’t grow up doing ballet, and taking my first ballet class at the Boys and Girls Club at age 13 gave me a setback compared to others who may have been dancing since they were 3. My teacher put me into many positions,

There comes a time in life where individuals have to leave school to join the world of work whereby they will work their way up to the top. This is where career development comes into place. Career development is defined as progress through various stages in a career (Schreuder & Coetzee,2011). These are stages one goes through in order to mature in a career and for development to even exist, one has to start with making a career choice then developing it .A career choice can be defined as the relation between people’s personality types and their different occupational environment in which they work in.

Mentoring for the mentor is about challenging himself to perform to greater capabilities while nurturing a mentee and stretching them to realise their full potential. Mentors counsel, tutor and guide their mentees in developing themselves.

Functions provided by a mentor include both career oriented and psychosocial. Career oriented functions are done to “enhance career advancement” of the protégé (Greenhaus et al 2010). Career functions include sponsorship, increased exposure and visibility, coaching, protection, and challenging but doable assignments. Psychosocial functions are done to “enhance sense of competence and effectiveness” of the protégé (Greenhaus, 2010, p 212). These functions involve being a role model, providing acceptance and confirmation, being a counselor, and providing

Learning mentors tend to work on a one to one level or in small numbered groups, a learning mentor must be a good listener, be able to encourage and motivate and act as a role model and encourage the build up of a mutually respectful relationship (Hayward, 2001).

Accompanied with the current shift towards more organic organisation structures and more emphasis on the learning organisation, mentoring provides a more all round experience to the mentees by getting them confident with their role with the organisation. It also improves communication throughout the organisation by allowing mentees to give feedback and learn in a not so formal fashion which helps people feel more relaxed and develops the formal and informal culture of the organisation.