When you’re aching to put yourself forward for a senior level promotion, your mind might be swirling up with both exciting and worrying thoughts.
What happens if I don’t get it?
So you end up overthinking and doing little. Or maybe you even put yourself forward, but also prepare for the worst by making plans to leave the company. What this does is prevent you from playing full out and showing yourself at your best, reducing your chances of getting the promotion.
What can you do instead?
Break down the issue into distinct steps so you can find a way to deal with each one simply, clearly and with complete focus on what needs to be done.
Here’s the process I use with my clients:
1. The promotion: what needs to be done to achieve this?
- Raise it with your boss / leadership team
- Get clear on what criteria you’re expected to have met in order to get the promotion
- Brainstorm on what concerns the leadership might have about your performance at the new level and how you can address these
- Get clear on the actions required to maintain visibility at work, while not burning out
- Work on the plan and mindset to keep you focused on getting the promotion
2. The personal concerns
- Get clear on what concerns you have about getting the promotion (there is always a cost like having less time, more responsibilities, more people to manage, etc)
- Get clear on what you want to do if you don’t get the promotion
When we break it down into clear digestible chunks like this, what we end up with is a list of issues to work on, rather than a huge and ambiguous problem that keeps you stuck.
The result of this is that:
- You play full out and stay focused on doing the things needed to get the promotion, minimising fear based thoughts and actions, thus increasing your chances of actually getting it
- You get clear on what your next step will be if the worst scenario was to happen, rather than worry about how bad you will feel. This stops you from spending unnecessary time and energy on worrying about what might happen in the future.
If this sounds like something you want to work on, get in touch via the contact form below.
Love,
Monica