I don’t know a single person who enjoys reviewing their entire year in one day with their boss. Talk about gruesome.

Annual reviews are a necessary reality of working in the professional working environment. If you’re about to go into yours and you’re feeling nervous or unsure, definitely keep reading because I’m going to walk you through, step-by-step, how to go into your annual review feeling refreshed, excited, and confident. Finally, assertively request that merit increase, a promotion, or just the recognition you deserve for all the hard work you’ve put in this year.

Step #1: Get in the right mindset.

First and foremost, you want to go back and review your brag book. Remind yourself of all the accomplishments and projects you’ve completed this year. You really are a badass and you deserve to be recognized for all the work you’ve put in.

Forget what a brag book is? A brag book is just a document or one place where you keep all your greatest hits or greatest accomplishments for the year. Think of it as your resume 10x. Your brag book is where you keep track of all the projects, the day-to-day tasks, and the goals that you have and what you’ve accomplished as the professional and a leader within your organization. If you haven’t yet created a brag book, check out this blog post where I cover all the details of crafting your very own.

Step #2: Use the three Rs to discuss your accomplishments.

Remind, reiterate and reinvigorate.

• Remind your boss of all the great things that you’ve accomplished through this year and re-tell the stories of success you’ve had.
• Reiterate how things progressed and how you were able to overcome challenges.
• Reinvigorate him or her and re-excite him or her with the progress you’ve made and how you’ve grown as an employee this year.

Step #3: Use the three Ls to discuss your growth.

Discuss what you liked, what you learned, and how you plan to level up.

• What did you like about your position? What did you enjoy doing? How did you position and its current role make you feel empowered and grow as a leader?
• What did you learn from the whole entire process? Recount failures and how you grew as a leader.
• Finally, how did you level up? How did you level up in your current role and get to that next level as a leader?

The ultimate goal of this part of your review is to set yourself up to get comfortable with your ask. Whether it’s a merit increase, a promotion, a bonus, etc. The three Ls help you easily define this and demonstrate your growth as a leader.

Now that you have a clear picture of how to get straight on your annual review, feel free to download my free guide: The Guide to Strategic Promotion Discussions. It walks you through step-by-step what you need to do to get your next level promotion. You definitely want to read it and check it out. It’s free.