I've written about it before. I've talked about it often. I've said it in group classes and circles of people, but I'll say it again.
Stop letting your career come to you. You are the writer of your own story. You are the owner of it. You don't have to rely on everyone else to promote you, to pay you more, to see you, to reward you, to give you the accolades you deserve, and more.
You control the story. Nobody else.
Get Scott’s article every morning
No spam. Just straight-talk career advice, every day.
The problem is that too many people sit around waiting for their career to notice them. They work hard, stay late, take on more, answer every message, say yes to everything, and hope that eventually someone will walk into the room and say, "You know what? We should probably give you more." Sometimes that happens. A lot of times, it doesn't.
There are people sitting in the same role for years, waiting for a promotion that may never come. There are people waiting for their boss to recognize that they're underpaid. There are people waiting for someone to invite them into the room, give them a bigger project, introduce them to the right person, or suddenly decide that today is the day their career should change.
Waiting is not a career strategy.
If you want more money, start building the case for why you're worth more. If you want a promotion, start understanding exactly what it takes to get there. If you want more visibility, stop hiding behind your work and start talking about what you're doing. If you want a different job, start meeting people before you desperately need one. If you want to lead someday, start acting like someone people would want to follow today.
That doesn't mean you control every outcome. You don't. Companies restructure. Bosses make bad decisions. Budgets disappear. Promotions get frozen. People get laid off. Someone else may get picked even when you were the better candidate. There will always be parts of your career that are completely outside of your control.
But you still control what you do next.
You may not get to choose every chapter, but you absolutely get a say in how the next one begins.
You control whether you sit there frustrated for another year or start building options. You control whether you ask the uncomfortable question. You control whether you make the call, send the message, apply for the role, learn the skill, start the side project, or finally admit that you've outgrown where you are. You may not get to choose every chapter, but you absolutely get a say in how the next one begins.
Your career becomes a very different experience when you stop waiting for permission to change it. Instead of asking, "What are they going to do for me?" you start asking, "What am I going to do next?" That's when you stop being a passenger in your own career and start writing the story yourself.