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Here are five keys to keep your heart in the right place while mentoring.
1. Don’t focus on outcomes
2. People aren’t projects, they’re people
3. No formula for mentoring. Every relationship is different.
4. Love is not performance based.
5. Hope vs. Expectation
Show Notes
Episode: 10
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WELCOME
WELCOME
You Can Mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others.
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SHOW NOTES
All mentors begin mentoring with a heart to make a positive difference in the life of a child. So often, we, as mentors, have in our mind what a successful mentoring relationship looks like.
Some times, success looks like:
- Academic achievements
- Dressing nicer
- Athletic success
- No sex, drugs or alcohol
- Better behavior
- No cussing
- Going to church
- Kindness, saying “yes ma'am” or “yes sir”, or handshake and making eye contact
Don’t get me wrong, these are all good things that will probably help set your child up for success in today’s world. But we cannot focus on these things. When we focus on outcomes, the enemy can make the child you are mentoring feel like a project and not a person.
When we have expectations that don’t get met, frustration can set in. When that negativity enters into a relationship, the enemy can use it to lie to you and wreck havoc on how you perceive your mentoring relationship.
Here are five keys to keep your heart in the right place while mentoring.
1. Don’t focus on outcomes.
- Focusing on outcomes leads you to see your mentee as a project
- Focus on being present more than you focus on their future.
2. People aren’t projects, they’re people.
- People don't progress like projects. We are never out of process. None are done.
- Relationships are warm and understanding. Projects are cold and calculating.
3. No formula for mentoring. Every relationship is different.
- "Spend time with a kid + Teaching him wise ways = Life Transformation." Sounds great, but it's not true
- Mentors are called to recognize the needs of the children they serve and be sensitive to God's leadership as the relationship grows
4. Love is not performance based.
- Our love comes with no strings attached. We love because he first loved us. We love no matter what.
5. Hope vs. Expectation
- Hope believes. Expectations assume.
- The kids we mentor should not have to carry the weight of our expectations
- Our hope in them and for them should carry their burdens, not be their burden.
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the You Can Mentor podcast. My name is Steven. Ride with me, and let's see where this thing goes.
Speaker 3:Ride with me.
Speaker 2:That's, like, the best, like, wedding song now.
Speaker 3:I don't I don't know that song.
Speaker 2:Where this thing goes. Y'all y'all don't know that song?
Speaker 1:I know that song. I wouldn't say it's the best wedding song.
Speaker 2:Okay. I danced with my wife to it, and it was a moment.
Speaker 1:I would say Bones by Penny and Sparrow. Sponsor us, please, is most Christian weddings, first dance songs. Or anything
Speaker 2:by John is fine. You know Penny and Sparrow? Of course you know Penny and Sparrow. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. My friend Mark Hager is college roommates, was college roommates with them. I don't know them know them. Like, if they walked in here, then they wouldn't know who I am. But I've met them with him
Speaker 1:on the podcast. Big dude.
Speaker 2:Their names aren't Penny and Sparrow, are they?
Speaker 1:No. It's Andy and something.
Speaker 2:You don't know them. You don't know their names.
Speaker 3:I don't I should say I know them by association.
Speaker 1:You don't know my story.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for listening to the podcast today.
Speaker 1:We are I'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:So grateful you're here. This podcast is all about the power of building relationships. Today's topic is all frustration comes from unmet expectation.
Speaker 3:So often, I come across mentors who are frustrated with their mentoring relationship. Sometimes things don't go as planned. Right? And disappointment has set in because what you thought would happen in your mentoring relationship hasn't happened. There's a saying that rings true in regards to mentoring, and that saying is this, all frustration comes from unmet expectations.
Speaker 3:Our goal is to make a positive impact in the life of a child. So often as mentors, we think a successful relationship might look like this or might look like that. But what happens whenever those things don't happen? Right? What is our mindset?
Speaker 3:How do we start to perceive the child or how how do we start to look at the relationship whenever things don't go like we thought that they'd go? Yeah. So today, we've got a couple points. We're gonna bang home these points and say these are the 6 or 7 things that we wanna talk about in regards to having expectations or not having expectations. So, Steven, why don't you kick us off with these main points?
Speaker 2:Yes. Number 1 main point, don't focus on outcomes. Don't focus on outcomes. So one of the main temptations of mentoring is to think about ultimately where this is headed rather than actually being in the moment with your kid investing in his life. We are all about relationships, and most of us don't view our relationships within this, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Where is this thing headed? You are more invested in the relationship than the product of the relationship. And so it's very freeing when you're a mentor and you're told don't focus on outcomes because most of our lives, that's like the focus in in business. If your boss told us, listen, listen, Zach, don't don't focus on outcomes
Speaker 3:right now.
Speaker 2:I just want you to, you know, just do your do your work. I think that that would be honestly probably a horrible business. But if you apply that to a mentor relationship, it actually causes it to flourish.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 1:So what are some of those outcomes that we tend to focus on that we're that we are saying don't focus on x y z thing? Because I think it's it's hard to know. Well, well, I want good outcomes for my kid. Can I not focus on those things?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And so why either why don't you focus on them or what are those outcomes that we're tempted to focus on or even put on to our the kid that we're mentoring?
Speaker 3:Yep. In some relationships, whenever you look for an outcome, that does put a lot of pressure on the kid who you're mentoring. He feels like he kinda has to be this or he has to do this or else or else the mentor won't show up or else he won't love me. Some of those outcomes might be academic achievements, making all a's and b's. Some of them might be doing well in sports, having achievements in athletics.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's no sex or no drugs or no alcohol or better behavior in the classroom or no cussing or dressing nicer or going to church or being kind saying, yes, sir, yes, ma'am, shaking a hand. All of these are things that I have seen mentors kinda put on the kid that they're building a relationship with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Most people who have a dad in their life all throughout their adolescence, like, one of the main pieces of feedback you hear consistently, because I did college ministry for 6 years, is that the expectation my dad had of me caused me to fight for relationship, fight for his love through becoming something that he approved of. But when you have a kid from a hard place who might not have even a relationship with someone who's ever had an expectation of him, that first relationship, that that meaningful mentor relationship can actually negatively impact their perspective of their value within the world based off of just what how they perform, what they do.
Speaker 1:The child that you're mentoring is a person who has feelings and has hard things for sure, but who doesn't, you know? And like, if you focus on outcomes, you essentially are turning that child into a project. And so how do you kind of switch that mindset or guard against the enemy, turning that relationship into a project or outcome based relationship rather than just a relationship with the person.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so that actually brings us to our second point, which is people are people. They're not projects.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Right? And so often I've seen a kid have the mindset or believe the lie that this mentor wants me to do better in school more than he wants to love me or he cares more about how I dress than me as a person. Yeah. All of those things that we talked about, doing well in school, having success in sports, dressing nice, all of those things are not bad things. They're not bad things at all.
Speaker 3:In fact, they're actually really, really good things. But the issue that we have is whenever we start to focus on them. Mhmm. When we start to focus on them, our kids sometimes can feel like a project, and no one likes to feel like a project.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:I don't care if you're 4, 14, or 40. No one likes that feeling. People are people. They are not a project. We are not here to, quote, unquote, fix our kids.
Speaker 3:We are here to love our kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Mhmm. John, I mean, I feel like that's a good question to ask is what what are the passive things that I'm doing just in my own thought life when it comes to my mentor relationship that prove whether I see this kid as a project or a person. Mhmm. And I think that's that's something that we, as mentors, have to consistently evaluate is, am I am I living within the reality that this this person I'm investing my life in is not a project?
Speaker 2:What I what I just love about Jesus as an example of mentorship is really he he makes his disciples feel loved, known, encouraged. He's always speaking into their life and speaking in a into a place of faith and not just what they're going to become, but actually just who they are. He loves them and he cares for them.
Speaker 1:Right. And, I mean, it goes back to the why. You know, why are we why are we mentoring? In our last podcast, you talked about, how it coming from a place of compassion and praying for the Lord to soften our hearts and praying for compassion for the kids that we are in relationship with. And if we forget the why, then we we start to focus on the expectation.
Speaker 1:But when we continually pray for compassion and for, a heart like Jesus had where he looks at the heart of his people and he I mean, he talks about, like, yes, he talks about outcomes, but it comes from place of compassion and love, like all of Sermon on the Mount. You know? Like, he is absolutely tearing away. Jesus is absolutely tearing away at these, like, legalistic expectations, and he comes back to the heart issue. And so when we pray for a heart like Jesus, this becomes easier because we we see the kid as a person Yeah.
Speaker 1:Rather than what they what they can bring or, like, how they can make us look or whatever whatever that, you know, the sin aspect or whatever the enemy decides to twist in our thoughts about the child that we're mentoring.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:When we pray for compassion for those kids, the Lord, the Lord protects us from that.
Speaker 2:Point number 3 today is there is no formula for mentoring. Every relationship is different, and so the relationship is going to have to look different. There's no one methodology for mentoring. Every kid is different.
Speaker 3:My relationship with my oldest son is totally different than my relationship with my second son. My marriage is different from your marriage, and it's up to us to learn about that person and to learn about their giftings and to learn about their personalities and what they like and what they don't like and what, you know, gets gets them motivated and what discourages them. I mean, we we have to become an expert on the kid that we're mentoring. And we have to ask a lot of questions and we have to observe and we have to get to know them and their heart and how they're wired in order to best serve them. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I think that's a good point because it's it's not I yes. I may learn something if I read a book about women. Right. But if I don't study my wife, my marriage is not gonna look good.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Like and so you can read as many books as you want about mentoring, but if you don't study your kid, then
Speaker 3:Right. Which let me be very open in saying that sounds super creepy. Study your kid. Right? But, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, you you have got to know the kid that you're mentoring. Mhmm. Also, I think a huge part of that is just asking the lord, god, tell me what you want me to do with this kid. Right. Tell me what area you want me to focus on.
Speaker 3:Show me how to best love him. Show me how to enter into his world and to make him the focus, not not me and what I want them to achieve. Right? I think a huge part of this all frustration comes from unmet expectations is when you put expectations on a kid, man, if I spend time with this kid and if I love them, then they will do these 1, 2, 3 things. When that doesn't happen, man, that gives the enemy just a wide open door to come in and just speak lies.
Speaker 3:This isn't working. You don't have what it takes to be a good mentor. This is a waste of your time. This kid is a lost cause. The enemy, we have to remember that he's the father of lies.
Speaker 3:And that in any chance that he has, he's going to speak lies over you and your relationship with your kid and to you about your kid. Because the last thing that he wants is for this relationship that's founded on love, founded on Jesus Christ. The last thing that he wants is for it to succeed.
Speaker 1:In complete transparency, everyone should know this, but, like, if God expected us to have if God loved us based on our performance, well, I mean, we've all.
Speaker 2:Done so.
Speaker 1:Done so. It's right. And so for us to ex put that expectation on a child Mhmm. Is not the love of God. And if you're coming at this from a place of, well, I want the Lord to work in this child's life, then we can't have performance based
Speaker 3:love. Right.
Speaker 1:And so how do you, as a mentor, kind of eliminate that expectation so that they can be free in the relationship too?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because I I think it connects to your own conception of, of your own performance, of receiving love by for performance. My friend, John Poitivent, was preaching in a sermon. He said, what you think God expects from you, you will expect from others. And so That's good.
Speaker 2:If I receive God's love based off how I'm doing and my performance, then I'm going to expect others to earn my love through their performance. Yep. Yeah. And I think that that is a that's a trap. So if you recognize that your love is contingent upon someone's performance, that's actually speaking to more of a heart issue in you.
Speaker 2:For sure. So that's that's tough to hear.
Speaker 3:Well and it's so hard because us as Christians, especially down here in the Bible belt, we love to perform. Yeah. We love to go to Bible studies, and we love to have our quiet times and we love to go to church every single Sunday and, you know, we don't miss church service because that's not what you do as a Christian. And it's so easy to fall into that trap that because I'm doing these things, the Lord is going to love me more. And if I don't do those things, then the Lord is going to be mad at me.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And it's so easy to bring that into your mentoring relationship. You asked the question, how how do we kind of guard against that? Right? And I think it comes back to our our own spiritual life.
Speaker 3:Us seeing ourselves as sons. Right? Us knowing that the Lord loves us not for what we do but for who we are. Right. I mean, I don't expect anything from my children.
Speaker 3:My children don't have to do anything to earn my love. I love them and it doesn't matter if they act a fool or if they don't pick up after themselves or if they scream and shout, I love them because they are my children. Yeah. And that's how God sees us. And that's how he calls us to see other people, specifically the kid who we mentor.
Speaker 3:And we're talking about a kid who he's maybe never experienced true unconditional love. And what an awesome opportunity that we as mentors get to give that kid the love of God, that true unconditional you don't have to do anything. There's no strings attached. I love you for you, not for what you do. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So guarding against performance based loves begins with our own spiritual life. It begins with seeing God as a good father who doesn't expect anything from us, and it begins with seeing ourselves as sons and daughters of the true king who loves us and accepts us into his family no matter what.
Speaker 1:We see this kind of love, this perfect love in scripture will one because of Jesus and what the Lord has done for us in allowing us to be in relationship with him, which is still crazy, and we should be still humbled by that. But we also see it in the story about the prodigal son and how his dad I mean, this everyone most people know this story, but the son just went out and squandered his inheritance and lived a life of sin. And what's crazy about that story too is he knew that he could go back to his father. Yeah. He went back to his father expecting to be a slave asking even just make me a servant.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. But he knew he could go back to his father, and his father's welcomed him with him with open arms and didn't make him a servant, but said, no. No. You are my child.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And without fear, welcomed him home.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And that son was still able to say, like, I know my dad will take care of me better than how I'm living right now.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And so in a mentor relationship, we want to be the father who has invested and loved this child in such a way that they have no fear in our relationship and have no question about us taking them back if they were to, you know, go go live their life. And you, Zach, we're saying that 2 relationships that you've had with kids, 1 is in school, making all a's and b's and really living a successful life as the world would see it. And then another one just got out of jail, but you still love that child.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you still pray for that child. Yeah.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:For you, the prayer now is that that child would come back and say, like, that you would be able to welcome him with open arms Right. Even even though the outcome of those 2 kids were totally different.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think this this is all going back to the fact that we have to we have to come at mentorship, kind of what, Steven, what you were saying earlier from a prayerful place, and entering into a relationship with the Lord as at the forefront so that we as mentors can say, child, you are welcome. And that my love doesn't come with expectation, and my love doesn't come with you performing in a certain way, which I think is huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It it kinda comes back to perfect love casts out fear.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Right? And if this kid knows that you love him no matter what, then he is gonna be perfectly comfortable to come to you Yeah. And share his life with you no matter what. And this is an issue that I've had in regards to the kids who I mentor. I I so often fall into the trap of focusing too much on expecting too much when it comes to quote unquote outcomes or successes.
Speaker 3:And I've had kids come up to me and say, hey, coach Garza. I don't like coming to see you whenever I've done poorly on a test because I know that you're going to be disappointed in me. And I'm like, man, that that cuts down to my heart, and that shows me that I have an issue because he is fearful of me because he didn't perform well. And the last thing that we want is for a kid to say, I don't wanna hang out with my mentor because I fill in the blank. Or I don't like my mentor because he's always telling me to do this or giving me advice or da da da.
Speaker 3:We want this kid to believe that we love them for them, not because we're not, for what they do.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:That brings us to the next point that we have. And that is hope versus expecting. Now here hear us when we say that it's totally okay and normal to hope for the best regarding the kid that you mentor.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It's fantastic to have desires and to have hopes and to have dreams. It's okay to even be expectant that the Lord is going to move. Right. However, where we get in trouble is whenever we start expecting things from the kid. Oh, I expect them because I spend time with them, because I've built this relationship.
Speaker 3:I expect them to do better and fill in the blank. Yeah. So just that that balance of hoping and desiring and dreaming for and believing for versus expecting.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's really good.
Speaker 3:So how tell me how that kind of has played out in the kid who you mentor Steven. How how has that played out in the relationship between yourself and the kid who you mentor?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, one of the things you have to do as a mentor, at least from my perspective, is you have this temptation to kind of manage your mentee's expectations and hopes. Like, for instance, my guy, he'd he's always talking about I'm gonna play football at a d one school and, like, NFL is my dream.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I
Speaker 2:feel like that's most of our kids are like, we're we're clearly going professional sports. Like, I mean, look at me. So I think as a as a mentor, you can't just sit here and be like, well, you know what? Like, diversification of your stock portfolio is more important than playing football
Speaker 3:and Mhmm. Like, try
Speaker 2:and play that route because you completely ostracize yourself from them actually wanting to hang out with you. And I think that that's something that is is a a struggle is the the things that I'm desiring him to care about or to believe or to aspire to. Ultimately, that can't be my battle. My battle is just to show him that I care. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Show him that I love him and not focus on my own agenda. But actually Yeah. Just focus on, hey, man. I love you so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well and and what's so crazy is all of these things that most mentors want. Mhmm. They, they will get if you focus in on the kid and if you love the kid. Because if you love the kid and Jesus Christ comes and totally transforms his life, then this kid is going to see himself differently and he's gonna have self esteem rise up and he's gonna have self value and all of these awesome things are going to happen.
Speaker 3:And he is going to be motivated to follow the Lord and make wise choices and do the things that the Lord commands us to do. And the result of those things are going to be being more responsible and caring more about other people and being selfless and working hard. And so it's almost like instead of being a mentor and saying, okay, I'm gonna focus on getting good grades. It's no no no. Let's focus on his heart and let's trust that the Lord's going to change his heart and his desires and the Lord is going to come in and move in his heart and the result of that is going to be, man, I wanna glorify the Lord in my academics.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. So it's the same outcome. You're just going about it 2 totally different ways.
Speaker 1:Well, and how much more glory does the Lord will get glory no matter what. Yeah. That's the thing is that he is a zealous God, and he will he will get glory. He doesn't need he is king of kings.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So he doesn't need us to say, like, God, you're awesome because he knows that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And he is he is awesome. But how much more glory does the Lord get when we remove ourselves from the equation in the sense that we remove our expectations for a child, and we just start surrendering that child to the Lord
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And surrendering our expectations for that child to the Lord. And when we go back again to the point that we are loving this kid because he is a son of the most high king, And when we identify him as that, and when our expectations come from who God has made him to be Yeah. How much more glory does the Lord receive when that child does come to know Jesus or when he does start living his life to glorify the Lord? Because we have removed ourselves from saying we've removed ourselves out of the equation, in the sense that we we don't say, well, son, you know that you're gods, and these are the 10 things I'm gonna tell you. And I expect them, for you to achieve these things in the next 6 months
Speaker 2:or
Speaker 1:next year or, you know, by the end of this quarter, you need to bring up these 3 grades. But instead, we say, hey. I love you, and I and we've we've talked about this, and we'll talk about it later, in other podcasts as well, but we, we want to speak identity over these children.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so when we start doing that and remove ourselves and our expectations out, the Lord has so much more room, in that relationship to absolutely take over that kid's life and take over the relationship in a way that is all glorifying to him rather than self glorifying, which I think is is sometimes the the thing that we find ourselves in as mentors, you know, when we because we may have unmet expectations that our kids just maybe aren't capable of meeting or we get frustrated because they don't meet it in our timing, and then we can get frustrated with the Lord. Right.
Speaker 3:And I mean, I have been angry in mentor relationships. I've been frustrated with my kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And every time I see him, there's not love and compassion in my eyes, but there's frustration and anger. And the bottom line is because I have been trying to be this kid savior. Yeah. And I have been trying to say, hey, it is my job
Speaker 2:A really bad savior.
Speaker 3:A terrible savior.
Speaker 2:It is Angry Jesus.
Speaker 3:My job to make sure that you succeed in life. It is my job to make sure that you have good grades and become a good husband and do all of these things. And that is the truth, unfortunately, and I do make a terrible savior. You asked the question, Caroline, how do you guard yourself from frustration from unmet expectations? And the bottom line is this, we've got to learn how to trust the Lord more.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. We've got to learn that the Lord loves this kid more than we do and that it is his responsibility and his job to transform him, not ours. We just get to be the mouthpiece. We just get to be the tool that he uses whenever he's good and ready
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:To transform this kid's life. And so we have got to trust that God is in control of this kid's life.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And God has a plan, and we just get to be a part of it. It is not our responsibility. It is not our weight to bear. It's his. And he's really good at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He's really good. I planted. Apollo's watered. God caused the growth.
Speaker 3:That's that first Corinthians 3 6 through 8. You know? Some toss out seeds and some water, but ultimately, all of us are on the same
Speaker 1:team.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening today to the podcast. Please follow, subscribe, leave us a comment, maybe a positive comment so someone else wants to listen.
Speaker 1:Rate us 5 stars.
Speaker 2:5 stars.
Speaker 3:Yes. 5 stars?
Speaker 2:5 out of 5. And, I mean, if you leave us, like, kind of an understanding of who you are on there, I know there's kind of a some anonymous like, you have some anonymity on those comments. But if you let us know who you are, we might send you some some merch, maybe like a You Can Mentor t shirt.
Speaker 3:Woah.
Speaker 2:So think about letting us know who you are. Don't put your address on there because Russia.
Speaker 3:So Oh.
Speaker 2:We love you guys. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next time.
Speaker 3:See you.