A Guide To Properly Thanking Your Mentors

A mentor can be anyone in your life who has helped you grow: a teacher, a co-worker, even a friend. Whatever their role in your life, they’ve offered you advice, guidance, and direction that has helped you meet your goals. There’s a chance they’re the person who helped you define those goals in the first place!

This brief guide to properly thanking your mentors will help you understand how to show your appreciation in a way that tells your mentor just how much you value their efforts.

Be Proud of Who You Are

Despite how often we are grateful to others, many of us find saying thank you to those who have truly made an impact on us intimidating. If you get cold feet about meeting up with your mentor to tell them how much you appreciate their efforts, try to remember all the ways they’ve changed your life for the better. Be proud of how you’ve adapted their lessons and all the progress you’ve made with their help. Chances are, they’re proud of you too and will be more than happy to receive your thanks.

Acknowledge Specific Actions

A true mentorship usually involves hundreds, if not thousands of lessons teaching highly specific skills and much broader life advice. It is sometimes difficult to capture years of influence into just a few minutes of conversation.

To make your thanks as powerful as possible, point to specific instances were the actions, words, or even just the presence of your mentor have fundamentally helped you improve. Even the smallest things can have the biggest impact and recalling those moments with your mentor is a heartfelt experience which displays just how much you appreciate them.

Give Them Something To Remember You By

Part of a mentor and apprentice relationship, no matter how casual or serious, is the idea that once the apprentice grows, they will move on. Be it due to moving away for college, starting a new career, or simply spending less time together when life gets in the way, a great way to finish your mentor relationship is to give a gift symbolizing the impact they’ve had on you.

At Crystal Central, we’re happy to help you customize one of our thank you plaques and find the words to perfectly capture your appreciation. By giving one of our long-lasting crystal awards, your mentor can happily reflect on how much you’ve grown each time they read your thanks.

Following a guide to properly thanking your mentors doesn’t mean your thanks won’t come across as genuine. It’s common to worry about showing gratitude in the right way, especially to someone who has made such an impact on your life. Just remember that without a doubt, you have made an impact on your mentor’s life that they’re grateful for as well.