1. Realize your worth: At my first real career job working at a medical transcription company, my responsibilities increased but my pay didn’t. After nine months, I finally submitted a written proposal requesting a raise and reasons supporting my request. In the end, I didn’t get the raise. So what did I do? I found another job that recognized my worth.
2. Keep emotions out of it: The career arena was probably the first time I had to stick up for myself in an adult situation. Taking the example above, asking for a raise wasn’t easy, and there was a whole stew of emotions brewing under the surface when they denied it. However, being overly emotional is unprofessional and won’t get you anywhere.
3. Ask for what you want: As I got older and more assertive, I became less afraid of asking for what I want. In Tim Ferriss’ book The Four-Hour Workweek, he recommends asking your boss if you can telecommute from home instead of going into the office every day. The takeaway is that you won’t know what you can get if you don’t ask.
4. Stay away from negative people: This is a principle I followed not only at work, but in my personal life too. There will always be someone at the office who likes to get caught up in work drama, gossips about coworkers, and is all in all a negative person. Hanging around someone like that will only damage your career.
5. Don’t slack off: When I was 21, I won employee of the year at a law firm I was working at. I was shocked, because I had only been working with them for 10 months, was one of the youngest in the office, and was surrounded by legal career professionals. So why did they elect me for this prestigious award? They cited my willingness to go above and beyond my job description, constantly looking for new things to learn and new ways to get involved with the company.
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