One of my resolutions, if you will, for 2014, is to find myself a mentor. I am at a point in my career where I feel like I need one. Someone to help me figure out what I should be focusing on. Someone smarter than me, or perhaps more optimistic. I’m not sure what a mentor is supposed to do, or how they are supposed to behave, but the term keeps coming up, and so I have decided I need one. (Kind of feels like the time I needed a Cabbage Patch doll, to be honest. Not sure why, but dammit, sign me up!)

Someone recently suggested that I first need to identify a person who is great at something I wish to be great at, and then ask them to mentor me. I know lots of those people. People who are great at focus, and determined to succeed. People who are funny and fun to hang around with. People who have great hair. All of those are things I want to be, or qualities I want to have. And yet, does one simply walk up to someone and say “hey, you have great hair, can I get on that bandwagon?” Perhaps not.

And then, last week, while watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas, for the millionth time, something occurred to me. Perhaps a mentor doesn’t come from a store either, figuratively speaking. Maybe it’s not the person, but the practice that I am after? And so, I wonder if the key to finding a great mentorship relationship is to first be one?

Interesting question, and maybe even slightly uncomfortable to consider. But with all the ‘lean in’ talk this year, there seems to be some possible truth there. As an educator, I know that I definitely learn more by teaching… so there is that.

What do you think, Internets? How would you go about finding a mentor? Or finding someone to mentor? (Is there a section on Craigslist for that?) I’d love your thoughts.