Mentorship Is Great, But Not Essential To Success

Think mentorship is the key to success? Not always. It might actually be secretly holding you back from taking real action.

You don’t need a mentor to start. You need a spine, a plan, and a little less scrolling.

Look, I get it. Everyone online is talking about their “mentor who changed everything.” Suddenly it feels like success is gated behind some wise, Gandalf-like figure handing out permission slips.

But here’s the truth no one likes to say: waiting for a mentor is just another fancy excuse for not doing the work.

You say you’re looking for guidance. But are you actually stalling? Hoping someone else will magically give you clarity, direction, and maybe a viral following while they’re at it?

Here's the thing: even if you had Oprah on speed dial, she still can’t do your reps for you.

Yes, mentorship is powerful. I won’t pretend otherwise. A good mentor can collapse your learning curve, challenge your mindset, and show you blind spots you didn’t even know existed.

But do you need one to start?

The simple answer is no.

In fact, many of the most successful people out there didn’t begin with a mentor. They just began. And the right people found them once they were already moving.

So in this post, we’re going to unpack the truth about mentorship. When it helps. When it hurts. And how to succeed even if you’re currently flying solo.

Because you don’t need a mentor to get started. You just need to stop waiting.

The Mentorship Myth

Somewhere along the way, we turned mentorship into a requirement instead of a resource. You hear things like, “Behind every successful person is a great mentor,” and suddenly it feels like you’re not even allowed to try unless someone wiser takes you under their wing. But let’s be honest, that belief is just another excuse.

This idea that you must have a mentor before you start is one of the biggest myths holding people back. It makes inaction feel strategic.

You say, “I’m just waiting for the right mentor,” but what you really mean is, “I don’t trust myself to figure it out yet.” And hey, that’s human. But let’s not pretend it’s progress.

Why This Myth Feels So Comfortable

The mentorship myth is cozy. It gives you a reason to stall that sounds noble. It tells you someone else needs to believe in you before you’re allowed to believe in yourself.

But here’s the truth: a mentor can guide you, support you, and challenge you, but they cannot save you from doing the hard work. They won’t magically hand you clarity or confidence. You still have to earn those the uncomfortable way: through action.

I’ve worked with clients who waited years for the “right” mentor before making a move. They consumed content, took courses, followed all the experts, but they didn’t actually do anything. Because deep down, they were hoping someone else would give them certainty. That’s not mentorship. That’s outsourcing your power.

You Don’t Need a Mentor to Begin

Mentorship is a privilege, not a prerequisite. Some of the most successful people out there started without anyone guiding them.

They read, experimented, failed, and tried again. They didn’t wait for approval, they moved. And often, once they were already in motion, the right mentor appeared. Funny how that works.

So yes, mentorship can accelerate your progress. It can shorten your learning curve and reveal your blind spots. But let’s stop acting like you can’t take a single step without it. Because you can. And honestly? You should.

If you're waiting for a mentor before you move forward, ask yourself this: Are you truly seeking guidance, or are you just afraid to trust yourself? Because the only thing worse than not having a mentor is using that as your reason to do nothing.

You’re Not Helpless Without a Mentor

Let’s set the record straight: you are not doomed without a mentor. You’re not some lost little lamb waiting to be herded to greatness. You’re capable of taking action, learning from mistakes, and making progress without someone holding your hand. Will it be harder? Sometimes. Slower? Possibly. But impossible? Absolutely not.

Most people overestimate how much a mentor can help and underestimate how much progress they can make on their own.

If you’ve got Google, curiosity, and a little grit, you’re already more equipped than half the population. Stop romanticizing the idea that you need someone older and wiser to validate your next step. You don’t. You just need to take the next step.

How To Progress Without A Mentor

Use the World as Your Mentor

Books are mentors. Podcasts are mentors. YouTube tutorials, case studies, blog posts, all mentors in disguise. If you’re consuming content with intention and actually applying what you learn, congrats, you’re already being mentored.

The internet is a 24/7 mentorship buffet. The difference is, you have to be the one who curates the experience. You have to do the work of filtering out the fluff and applying the gold.

My first few years building my business? No mentor. Just trial and error, plus a whole lot of reading, experimenting, and quietly cringing at my own old content. I didn’t wait for a mentor to find me. I became someone worth mentoring.

Build Self-Reliance and Critical Thinking

One of the best things about navigating the early stages alone is that you learn how to think for yourself. You build decision-making skills. You develop resilience. You stop outsourcing your confidence to other people.

That’s an edge most people don’t realize they need; The ability to back your own ideas and move even when you’re unsure.

When you figure things out the hard way, you build a deeper understanding. You can’t just copy what someone else did. You have to make your own choices. And yeah, that comes with a learning curve. But it also comes with power.

Progress Loves Action, Not Perfection

The people who move fastest are the ones who stop waiting for the perfect plan. You don’t need a mentor to tell you that your first offer might flop. Or that your first Instagram post will probably get five likes.

You need to know that the act of doing is what gets you better. Clarity doesn’t come from thinking about action, it comes from taking it.

So if you’re sitting around waiting for someone to show you the way, stop. The way reveals itself as you walk it. Your job isn’t to find the map. Your job is to start moving and trust yourself to figure things out as you go. Mentors can help, but they’re not your savior. You are.

How To Find The Right Mentor (If You're Ready For One)

Make Sure You’re Ready to Be Mentored

Before you go hunting for a mentor, ask yourself one thing: are you actually ready to be mentored… or are you just hoping someone will do the thinking for you?

Because here’s the truth: good mentors don’t want to babysit. They want to work with someone who’s already showing up, taking action, and doing the damn work.

Mentorship isn’t about someone fixing your life. It’s about guidance, accountability, and growth, not hand-holding. If you haven’t even tried to figure things out on your own, you’re not looking for a mentor. You’re looking for a shortcut. And great mentors can smell that energy from a mile away.

Look in the Right Places

The best mentors aren’t always wearing badges that say “MENTOR” in bold letters. Sometimes, they’re in your industry circles, your DMs, your favorite podcasts, or inside the paid course you’ve been ignoring.

Look for people who are living the kind of life or building the kind of business you want. And more importantly, watch how they do it, not just what they post on Instagram.

If you admire someone’s mindset, approach, and track record, that’s a green flag. Mentors don’t need to be famous. They need to be real, relevant, and aligned with the kind of growth you’re chasing.

Build a Relationship Before You Ask

Want to turn someone into a mentor? Start by being a value-driven human being. Engage with their content. Share your takeaways. Apply their advice and let them know what changed for you. If you can show up as someone who takes action, they’ll naturally be more inclined to invest in you.

Don’t slide into someone’s inbox saying, “Can I pick your brain?” That’s code for “Can I have your time for free with no effort on my part?” Instead, show them you’ve already done your homework, and you’re serious about growth.

Be Clear on What You Want

No one can help you if you’re vague. “I want to grow” is cute, but it doesn’t tell your mentor what kind of support you need. Be specific. Do you want feedback on your business strategy? Help navigating a career shift? Accountability to stay consistent with content?

The clearer you are, the easier it is for someone to say yes, or even refer you to someone more aligned. Mentorship works best when it’s a two-way relationship, not a fishing expedition.

Mentorship Is a Bonus, Not a Crutch

Having a mentor can be game-changing. It can open doors, collapse timelines, and keep you from falling into traps you didn’t see coming.

But it is not a replacement for personal responsibility. A mentor can help you scale, but only if you’ve already got a foundation to build on.

So if you’re ready, start seeking the right person with intention. But don’t sit around waiting. Keep taking action. The right mentor often appears after you’ve proven that you’re already committed, with or without them.

How to Make the Most of Mentorship

Show Up Coachable, Not Clingy

There’s a big difference between being coachable and being needy. A mentor is not your emotional support person.

They’re not there to coddle you, praise you, or fix your mindset every time you spiral. They’re there to challenge you, guide you, and help you grow. That means sometimes they’ll say things you don’t want to hear, and that’s the point.

Being coachable means you’re open to feedback, even when it stings. It means you’re willing to try new things, admit when something isn’t working, and take full responsibility for your results. If you’re constantly defending your limitations, you’re wasting both your time and theirs.

Take Action Between Conversations

The power of mentorship doesn’t come from the chats. It comes from what you do between them. The biggest red flag for any mentor? A client who nods on Zoom calls, takes pages of notes… and then does absolutely nothing until the next session.

You don’t need to implement everything perfectly, you just need to move. Experiment. Reflect. Course correct. If your mentor gives you a strategy or a challenge, take it seriously. Even if it flops, it gives you something real to work with. That’s how growth happens.

Ask Better Questions

If you want better answers, ask better questions. “What should I do?” is lazy. “Here are the two options I’m considering, and why, what’s your take?” shows initiative. It shows you’ve already thought things through and just need a second perspective.

Mentors are not search engines. They don’t want to spoon-feed you information you could’ve found yourself. They want to help you grow your thinking. So don’t just ask what they would do. Ask why. Ask what they would avoid. Ask how they made similar decisions. That’s where the gold is.

Track Your Progress

A great mentorship relationship should lead to momentum. Track what’s improving. Document your wins, even the small ones. Make notes of where you feel more confident, clear, or consistent. This helps your mentor support you better, and it also shows you the real value of the work you’re doing.

A mentor isn’t just helping you hit goals. They’re helping you become someone who knows how to hit goals. And when you start seeing yourself as that kind of person, the game changes.

Don’t Become Dependent

Mentorship is meant to be temporary, not forever therapy. The goal is to build your own capacity, not rent someone else’s clarity. If you rely too much on your mentor to make decisions or validate your worth, you’re doing it wrong.

Use the mentorship as a springboard, not a security blanket. Learn what you need to learn, implement like hell, and then take off the training wheels. The best mentorships end with the mentee realizing they can now lead themselves.

So, if you’re lucky enough to find a great mentor, amazing. Use it well. But never forget: the most powerful thing a mentor can teach you… is how to stop needing them.

The Mentorship Trap

When Mentorship Becomes a Crutch

Mentorship sounds noble. Strategic. Mature. But it can quietly become a very well-disguised excuse to avoid personal responsibility. I’ve seen it: someone constantly “seeking guidance,” bouncing from coach to coach, mentor to mentor, never actually applying anything. Just planning, processing, preparing… but never doing.

That’s the trap. You become addicted to guidance. You think you need someone’s blessing before you move. You want every step approved and double-checked. You outsource your decision-making and call it “being mentored.” But in reality, you’ve just built a dependence and slapped a self-development sticker on it.

Overconsumption vs. Implementation

You can read every book, join every group, DM every expert, but if you’re not taking messy, imperfect action, you’re just collecting advice like Pokémon cards.

It feels productive. It gives you that little dopamine hit of “I’m working on myself.” But your goals? They don’t care how many webinars you’ve watched. They only respond to action.

I once worked with a client who had hired four coaches in one year and hadn’t launched a single thing. She was stuck in analysis paralysis, but worse, it was mentorship-approved paralysis.

Everyone was “helping,” but no one was challenging her to stop planning and start. When we finally ditched the fancy frameworks and just focused on doing one thing well, her entire energy shifted. She didn’t need more mentors. She needed motion.

When You Stop Thinking for Yourself

The more dependent you become on others to validate your path, the further you drift from your own intuition. You start ignoring your gut because someone “more experienced” told you otherwise. You second-guess every creative idea, because your mentor didn’t say it first. You stop leading and start mimicking.

Mentorship should expand your thinking, not replace it. It should sharpen your voice, not silence it. If you’re constantly asking, “What would they do?” instead of “What feels right for me?”, you’ve lost your power, and that’s not the point.

Break the Cycle

The mentorship trap is sneaky because it looks like growth on the outside. But the truth is, mentorship is only empowering when it leads to independence. If you’re still relying on someone else to tell you who you are and what you should do… you haven’t grown. You’ve just built a fancier version of self-doubt.

So ask yourself: are you being mentored, or are you hiding behind the mentorship? Are you evolving or are you just collecting opinions? If it’s the second one, it’s time to take your power back.

Mentorship should light a fire under you, not become the blanket you hide under.

Something To Think About

In case I haven't made it clear enough, let me say it again: You don’t need a mentor to get started. You need clarity, courage, and the willingness to move before everything makes perfect sense.

Mentorship can be powerful, for sure, but it’s not magic. It doesn’t replace your work. It enhances it. And only after you’ve shown up for yourself.

So if you’ve been waiting for someone to guide you, validate you, or give you permission… consider this your wake-up call. You don’t need permission. You need action. The kind where you figure it out mid-flight; where you learn by doing, not waiting.

If you find a great mentor along the way, that's awesome. Show up coachable. Apply what they teach. But don’t lose your voice in the process. A mentor is a guide, not an all-knowing sage. They should help you grow your power, not hold it.

And if you’re currently without a mentor? You're not behind. You're not less worthy. You’re just in the part of the story where you’re building trust in yourself. Which, honestly, might be the most important chapter of all.

So stop stalling in the name of strategy. You don’t need someone to lead you, you need to start. The right people tend to show up once you’re already in motion. So get at it.

This post was all about mentorship.