Have you ever been surpassed for a job promotion by people who are not better than you?

If so, you know how it feels. It hurts. It makes you feel disappointed. Sometimes even angry. It also makes you wonder why you spent all those extra hours working.

The question is: Why do some people get promoted while others don’t? Is it merit, or luck, or self-promotion? After working with ambitious professionals for over a decade, I started to see patterns. There are common reasons why most people get passed over for promotions.

3 Reasons You Didn’t Get a Promotion

1) Limiting beliefs.

Everything that happens in your visible world–job promotions, recognition, salary increases– is largely driven by your invisible world, which is formed largely of your own beliefs.

You would be surprised to learn how many of the super-smart, tucked-in careerists have a limiting belief that they shouldn’t been talking about their successes and that results will speak loud enough. Such beliefs sabotage their career success for years, until they realize that it may be too late. The key to a winning career mindset is to be aware of your top 3-5 limiting beliefs and the impact they have on you, and then work to systematically eradicate them. This practice alone will unleash your potential.

2) Lack of career strategy.

Have you ever worked in an organization which didn’t have a strategy? Very unlikely. Organization without a strategy is like a ship without a compass. And the same applies to your career. If you don’t have a career strategy, you will only get to experience your career, as opposed to accelerate it. Unfortunately, most of the people don’t have any career acceleration strategy whatsoever or, their strategy is based on a traditional (read: generic and rehashed) career advice such as “I need to put myself out there more” or “I need to network more” or “I need to work harder.”

3) No systems to execute that strategy.

As the old saying goes, ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ There result of this is that everything else gets more priority than your career. Every new email, every new idea of your boss, every new little project…they all start getting more priority and soon you find your self working harder but getting only an average grade at your yearly performance review…while someone else gets promoted.

The way to tackle this is to pay attention to your career acceleration every day. Block 5-10min in your calendar daily.

You will use this short time to look at your one-page strategy document and decide on one thing you will focus on today, that will get you closer to your next role. In this way, you prioritize your career first, and only then millions of tasks that easily fill up your day. Every day you will feel one step closer to a job promotion and that you have control over your career.

If you find this advice valuable, check out our webinar:

4 Steps to Getting Promoted Faster and Paid More.