You are eager to get promoted and move on to the next step. You are constantly comparing yourself to your peers, are impatient about your own job situation and cannot wait for something exciting in your career to happen. You want to get promoted!

Image courtesy of dream designs at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Every once in a while when your personal life calms down a little and work isn’t as busy for a change, you’ll get the feeling that it’s time for something new… that you’re standing still and that something new and exciting needs to happen for you!

As just wanting to move on and getting promoted isn’t a very precise and defined goal, you need to carefully think about the following first:

1. Where do I want to go? Do I just want to get promoted away from my current role because I don’t feel challenged anymore and the exciting feeling of learning something new every day got replaced with complacency, or do I have a clearly defined goal of where I want to be. Having a 5 or 10 year plan with clearly set goals is important as it gives meaning to your journey and calms you down.
2. Where are you now and how competent are you in your role? Wanting to be the next GM of your business is surely a clearly defined goal, but if you just started as a front desk agent it is unlikely to be your next step. Try to have a fair assessment of how well you are doing in your current role and if you are ready for more responsibility. Ask your supervisor and peers to get feedback about your performance, and don’t take ‘you’re doing great’ for an answer. If you don’t get any constructive feedback at all that would help you grow, it wasn’t worth asking in the first place.
3. What’s your next step and who is there now? Now it’s time to think about your next role that you want to grow into. Look at the people who are in that position at the moment, what they are doing, and what you need to learn to be considered for that position. Once you put in the work to learn and perform the tasks that are expected from the position that you want to get promoted to, your boss will have no other option but to promote you once the time is right.

So getting promoted is not something that will happen for you by itself and that you have no control over. It’s your responsibility and you are in charge of it!

Question: Did you ever feel like standing still, and what did you do about it?