This is the time of year when you are setting budgets, talking about bonuses, and in active negotiations and discussions for yourself, your team, and the business.

My goal is to ensure you have the right mindset and perspective when you go into those conversations so they go in your favor.

When it comes to the "earning it" mindset, we are going to dive into what it is, why it matters, how it has helped you in your career, how it could hurt you, and then we will wrap it all up with how to find the balance with this mindset so it serves you at the highest level. That’s the plan for the month.

So today, let’s get into the topic by talking about what the “earning it” mindset is.

Earning it essentially means you did the work to generate the reward, right?

You performed a task or did an action that resulted in a reward of some sort. It could be as simple as playing a card game and winning the hand, to showing up to work and contributing to earn your paycheck.

Every single day we are performing actions that generate results. They could be good results or bad results, but we are generating results.

The key to this discussion is our perception of the relationship between actions and results.

Is it cause and effect?

When I do X I generate Y.

That’s what the earning-it mindset is founded upon.

From a career perspective, it is:

I did these actions within my role, therefore I have earned my paycheck.

I took on this extra project, I sacrificed, and I gave above and beyond, therefore I have earned this promotion.

The link we have within our brain matters because it is part of the definition of this mindset.

Ultimately an “earning it” mindset means I must DO something to get the reward.

If I don’t do the action or perform the function, I may receive the reward, but I didn’t earn it.

So no doubt, as you are thinking through this, you’re already asking yourself the key questions as it relates to “earning it.”

Which is good, because that’s your homework from this episode.

I want you to take some time to self-reflect. Do you believe that you must actually “earn” the paycheck, the award, the bonus, the promotion, etc. to be “worthy” of receiving the reward?

That’s what it comes down to. If you didn’t do the work but got the reward, are you ok with that or do you feel like you need to work harder and longer to make up for it?

Think about it. Next week we are going to dive into the most common reason many of us started off our careers with this “earning it” mindset.

This is a concept I am sharing in my book that will be published next year. If you want to learn more about it, send me an email ([email protected]) and I will happily share more with you and your organization.

Be Legendary!

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