Have you ever spent all night (or maybe even days) obsessing about walking into your bosses office to ask for a raise only to show up the next day and not say a word?
You got to work determined, but then the thoughts started to churn…
What if my boss says flat out no?
What if my boss laughs in my face?
What if my boss thinks I’m being greedy?
And no less than twenty minutes after you’ve walked into the door at work, you’ve completely talked yourself out of it, based on the assumption that the answer is going to be no. You sit at work feeling defeated because not only did you not even ask, now you’ve decided your work isn’t valued, you’ll never advance, the company doesn’t have extra money anyway, and you will continue to barely scrape by financially for the rest of your life.
But what’s the truth about why you didn’t get a raise?
You did not ask.
In order to get the raise, you have to be willing to open yourself up to the discomfort of having to ask or advocate for yourself. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, articulate why you think you deserve it, and know that one possible answer is “No, not right now”.
That’s it.