1). Set Clear Expectations

To do this, meet with your boss and lay out in writing what your exact job description is. Make sure it contains clear and specific responsibilities so you and your boss have a shared understanding of your position.

If you are already working at your job, but don’t fully understand your role, set up a meeting like this with your boss to get some clarity.

Your job description, if written specifically, will spell out your baseline performance metrics. These are the tasks and responsibilities that you are to complete each year in exchange for your current salary.

Now that this baseline is understood by you and your boss, let’s move onto step 2.

2). Define Concrete and Achievable Growth Targets

For your job to remain engaging, challenging, and rewarding you will want to learn new skills, take on new responsibilities, and grow in your role.

Ask your boss the following questions:

• What skills can I learn to grow at [Insert company name]?

• How do you see my path to providing more value to our team?

• What is the largest problem we are facing in the next 2-5 years and how can I be a crucial player in finding a solution?

• What concrete performance metrics can I hit in the next 6 month in exchange for a 15% raise?

• Can you help me create an incentive structure for my position so that I can provide more value to [insert company name]?

These types of questions will help define a clear path to your next raise and make your job more interesting. If you hit these metrics, they make your boss look good in the process and help the company. The goal here is to gamify your position so that you become an asset to your boss and ultimately enjoy your work.

If you don’t follow these steps and simply accept the status quo, you are unlikely to learn new things, increase your responsibilities, and will eventually find your work boring.

Bonus:

If you would like to have this discussion with your boss, I’ve created a free email template you can send today to chart the path to your next raise. Type in $0 at checkout.

3). Go Over These Metrics In Every 1-on-1 Meeting

Every time you have a one-on-one meeting with your boss, pull out a typed sheet of the agreed upon performance metrics you created with your boss and show them your progress towards the targets.

If you have hit the target, inform your boss and request the compensation or bonus associated with it.

In this meeting, also lay out new targets for you to hit and ask the questions you did in step 2 to uncover any hidden opportunities.

If you can help your boss enter this mode of creative thinking with you and lay out these new responsibilities, your path for growth will be better defined.

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Action Steps:

Are you feeling stuck in your job? Advocate for yourself by talking with your boss today about where you can grow and how you can better serve your company. If you have this conversation with you boss, I’d love to hear about how it went and what incentive structure you were able to create.

Please share this with your friends by forwarding them this email.

Rock on,

Camden