Prepare For The Promotion Conversation, Every Day

January is always a refreshing time to list out your goals and set yourself up for success for the New Year. If you’re anything like me, you have a number of things you want to accomplish listed out and ready to tackle. It’s nice to look at this list and feel inspired and motivated, but let’s fast forward to April, or May when the New Year’s resolution mojo isn’t so strong… It comes as no surprise that your “inspo” might fade but when it comes to goals, you need to track your success. Literally, every day.

We all have personal goals, but I’d like to focus on our professional and career goals.

Some companies might be very goal oriented and actually ask you to prepare these goals in advance, so when you have discussions with your boss, these conversations are more structured. If that’s not the case, you should structure your goals and accomplishments in your own way. The reason why? It might be time for the promotion discussion and you want to be prepared and confident.

How To Start

Start a goal journal dedicated to your career. List the things you want to accomplish in the next six months and give yourself deadlines. That’s right. Give yourself deadlines—even if the to-do is small. These can be things that will directly impact your skillset for your job. Then list out things you’d like to do outside of your job description that will increase your value and knowledge. Say you want to attend a marketing conference or join a workshop, get them on your calendar and document it.

The hard part is evaluating your progress after that deadline comes due. If you achieved your goal, that’s easy, celebrate! If not, what were your roadblocks? What was stopping you from completing it? Don’t be hard on yourself by any means. Instead of beating yourself up about it, accept what the issues were and move forward. Make changes and adjustments to your plan. Sometimes we set unrealistic goals and that’s okay. Just acknowledge it and keep working towards it. Baby steps, baby.

Passion Project

I know you’re a busy gal. Fitting in something that’s outside of your day-to-day job duties can sound impossible at times. Just try this. Assign yourself a passion project. Do something you know will benefit your team at work. Create a new process, or work on new software or designs. Create something that would benefit your job and make it our own! Once you narrow in on what you’d like to do, make a deadline and track your weekly progress. This can add to your portfolio/resume and will go a long way during those annual review discussions.

Write It Down!

Last, but, CERTAINLY, not least, write your accomplishments down. When did you go the extra mile? When did you provide help and knowledge on a campaign that made it super successful? Write it down! Document your achievements, because it’s so easy to get lost in everyday work that when it comes to reflecting on our growth, we lose track of our value. That’s what we’re here to talk about right? Our value. So call up that meeting with your boss you’ve been dying to have Present your accomplishments from the past 6 months or year. Show your worth and get the promotion that you deserve.