Don't Chase Promotions

Before everyone grabs the pitchforks let me explain why you shouldn’t blindly chase promotions and what you should chase instead.

I’ll start by saying that nothing is wrong with pursuing a promotion with the caveat that the promotion nets you something substantial. While it sounds obvious, we’re conditioned to continuously progress “forward” whenever possible in life.

The problem with this, especially in corporate America, is that this process is never-ending. Because of this, it’s akin to a hamster wheel — you can always get promoted to the next level, take on greater responsibility, and grind for a larger bonus. What you can’t do in life is recover the time you lost pursuing something inconsequential (but if you somehow know how to do this please dm me immediately).

Before chasing a promotion, evaluate your current situation in life. Are you happy where you are and would a promotion substantially improve your life?

If you can’t clearly articulate what promotion nets you and why it matters I strongly recommend you reconsider your path forward. The most common reason I see for chasing promotion (especially blindly) is increasing one’s total compensation.

Remember, money is a means to an end. Money is a resource that helps enable you to live the life you want — once you have enough of it, you can do so. Any dollar over that required amount is time wasted as you’re trading your most valuable currency, time, in exchange for a less valuable one, fiat currency.

Here’s how I view money as it relates to the life I want to live and my time:

This chart is exactly how you should view the things you chase in life as it relates to money. Ideally, you eclipse the perfect amount of money you need to live your dream life as soon as possible. If you don’t yet know this amount, ballparking an amount is a good place to start by working backwards (i.e. think about where you want to live, the price of a house you want, the kind of car you want to drive etc). In a perfect world, we all immediately reach our ideal amount and then tightrope walk across it until the end of our days.

In a less ideal scenario, you overshoot your required amount and continue earning ad Infinium. This is unfortunate since those additional dollars came at the direct expense of your own time (if they didn’t, feel free to become the monopoly man) and net you nothing new or beneficial in your life.

I’d argue the worst possible scenario is undershooting your perfect amount. Doing so harbours regret and a life of dreaming of what your life could have been but never was.

Assuming you’ve correctly assessed what you want out of life and its cost, you want to land the plane exactly on this line. Personally, this is my goal. And if I had to choose between the two other less ideal scenarios, I ere on the side of making more money not less. This comes simply from the fact that I’m hoping (and betting) that at some point in life, I’ll have the money to do the things I believed I wanted (buy a second house for example), but will realize I don’t and therefore choose not to indulge in them.

I’d rather regret the time I spent affording myself the option to do something financially and opting not to do that thing as opposed to regretting not having the financial means to decide for myself.

Note that it’s possible (maybe even likely) that your “perfect amount of money™️” line changes throughout life. Therefore monitor it accordingly and adjust the work required to reach your goal to minimize the areas above or below it.

Getting back to the initial topic, this entire concept of pursuing promotion can be further extended to goal setting in life. Take care to set good goals. Goals that inspire you and contain intrinsic value. Too many of us chase an arbitrary goal, reach it, and immediately set another goal just as arbitrary without thinking.

Time is the only non-renewable resource, cherish yours.

TL;DR Don’t blindly chase promotion, chase only what moves the needle and what makes you happy.

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