Takeaways
- Earning more money will help you meet your long-term financial goals.
- Financial security allows for career exploration and taking bigger career risks.
- Finding the right environment for career growth is just as critical as working hard.
- Investing in yourself is one of the strongest predictors of overall career success.
- Career advancement means honing core talents and improving peripheral skillsets.
If you can advance your career quickly, you can earn more money and achieve your financial goals. Career advancement ushers more money, prestige, security, and economic certainty. But moving up the corporate ladder or creating your own successful business doesn’t come without intentional thought and effort.
The good news is that the path to climb the corporate ladder or make your own way has already been paved. There are practical, tangible steps you can follow to unlock your earnings potential and accelerate your earnings power.
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9 Steps That Will Advance Your Career
Studies have shown that earning power plateaus after a decade or two in the workforce.[1] Who wants to wait that long? Break that trend and be an early outlier. Here are nine steps to take to launch your career:
1. Create Career Goals
You can’t manage what you don’t measure. By creating career goals, you give yourself tangible tasks to work toward. Simply put, the act of setting goals makes you more likely to achieve them than if you did nothing.[2]
How you create career goals is very important. We are proponents of the S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting system. By creating career goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound, you can ascend the career ladder in a staggered manner.
For example, a regular goal might be “Get Promoted,” whereas a SMART goal would say “Get promoted to Manager in 3 years.” The SMART goal allows you to plan how to achieve your highly specific goal and reverse engineer the steps you need to take to achieve it.
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2. Invest in Yourself
Billionaires like Warren Buffet often say that investing in yourself is the best investment you can ever make. The time, money, and energy you invest in improving yourself daily are well spent and compounded over time.
Whether trying to earn a master’s degree, secure a new certification, or learn an integral part of your job, investing in yourself gives you the best shot at success.
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3. Practice Communication Skills
Executives at the top of all companies have mastered the art of communication. The more practice you can get early in your career with communication, the better for your long-term success.
That communication takes many forms: companywide meetings for informing employees of company objectives, presentations to potential customers about product launches, written letters to shareholders, or business dinners to discuss strategic plans.
All of these involve various degrees of communication skills. Mastering communication will help you navigate your career and set you apart.
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4. Get Coaching
Your Chief Executive Officer probably has a career coach. So, why don’t you?
It is easy to think that you don’t need a career coach early in your professional life and that coaches only help those in executive management positions or someone trying to start a business. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Career coaching can save you thousands of dollars and time. Whether they are questioning your mental framework, how to think about a work topic, providing feedback on how you have progressed since your last session, or questioning why you can’t do something faster, a great career coach can help you get promoted quickly. A promotion comes with a higher salary, which can help you accomplish your financial goals.
Smart Tip:
Creating financial security, such as saving for an emergency fund, slush fund, and investing, will provide you with the financial flexibility to take the time to find the right job, transition to a new position, or start your own business.
5. Master Networking
The art of networking can change your career trajectory. Creating a professional network of dedicated, hard-working, and successful professionals can bring you success. The value of your network is the value of your net worth.
Successful networking doesn’t mean attending every corporate happy hour or industry event. True networking means forging deep relationships with people who have similar career interests as you. These connections may eventually become your mentors and life coaches.
For example, if you are a writer, forming a relationship with a successful author in your city or state could be tremendous for your career. By partnering with people who have already accomplished what you want to achieve, you can absorb knowledge and contacts, which will accelerate your career.
6. Continue Learning
The average household earning over $75,000 per year reads 15 books on average per year.[3] In general, reading volume increases in proportion to income level. Business executives are continuously focused on learning new information and absorbing as much information as time allows, knowing that learning never stops.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money getting books or learning new skills. Online learning platforms give you the ability to learn a new skill set or conduct a deep dive into a specific subject. Here are Smart Money's recommendations for great online learning platforms:
- Udemy
- Skillshare
- Linkedin Learning
- Kajabi
Smart Tip:
Many companies offer reimbursement programs or tuition reimbursement for employees to learn new skills, earn certificates, or obtain professional degrees. Check if your company offers any of these employee perks.
7. Accept Challenges
Billionaire Richard Branson, the former CEO of Virgin Airlines and serial entrepreneur, has a famous quote: “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!” While it is difficult to be this spontaneous, the saying certainly has its lesson. One of the main reasons employees become stymied in their career progression is getting too comfortable with their current position and role.
Accepting new challenges virtually ensures your personal and professional development. What new challenges could you give yourself? Have you said “no” to anything recently? Pushing through boundaries requires shedding old habits and learning new ones. Being smart about the habit of accepting challenges along your career path could pay dividends.
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8. Remain Healthy
Staying healthy can increase your lifetime career earnings. Health includes physical, mental, and emotional well-being. You should take a holistic approach to keeping yourself in top shape.
Being physically in tune with your body to combat the pressures of your working life is vital to longevity. Simple activities such as walking, drinking water, and optimizing your desk to your physical stature can improve mood and productivity output.[4]
Maintain mental health by taking breaks from work to give yourself the advantage of detachment. During these times, it is vital to unplug. Revisiting workplace issues after mentally distancing yourself from the problem can bring clarity, insight, and new solutions.
Emotional health gives us balance. Monitoring our emotional health throughout our career can help with impulse control.
9. Focus on the Right Things
Focus on the right things, instead of focusing on getting things right. This attitude will separate you throughout your career because it recalibrates you to reflect on the value drivers of career growth.
Of course, it is essential to do your job well, but certain features and focus make employees stand out over the long run. Incorporate the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule.
Smart Summary
You spend most of your time working, so why not be great at what you do? At the nexus of hard work and loving what you do there is a gold mine of untapped earning potential. To break the norm and keep increasing your income to meet your financial goals, remain focused on continuous improvement in all areas of your professional life. Being the Swiss Army Knife of the office, you can tackle problems and boost your earnings potential. Becoming great at what you do is a smart money move.
[1] Payscale. Earnings Peak at Different Ages for Different Demographics Groups. Last Accessed February 19, 2025.
[2] Leadership IQ. Are Smart Goals Dumb? Last Accessed February 19, 2025.
[3] Pew Research Center. Slightly fewer Americans are readying print books, new survey finds. Last Accessed February 19, 2025.
[4] Journal of Experimental Psychology. Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Waling on Creating Thinking. Last Accessed February 19, 2025.
