Too often, we only think of our career trajectory when we are up for a performance review, raise, or looking to move jobs. We get lost in the day to day work that we don’t consider what key data we could be leaving out of our professional growth. Ongoing trainings, reading thought leadership and books, and networking are thing we try to do often. However, sometimes there’s not enough time and energy for these things in your weekly work life (and especially this year as we’re all in survival mode). There’s one thing I want you to do right now that will be an asset as you grow in your career and professional path.

Create a what I have dubbed a “Boost Doc.” A boost doc is a place where you keep all positive feedback and kudos you’ve received from co-workers, managers, clients, mentors, and anyone else you’ve worked with professionally. This should be the feedback you have personally received that is specific to you and your work. Where do you get these quotes? Just look for them! You can pull them from:

• Performance Reviews
• Slack / Team Messaging
• During Meetings
• Email Communication
• HR Software
• Sprint & Project Retrospectives
  
  
  

What should I include in my boost doc?

You boost doc should have the direct quote (or as direct as you can get it as you are trying to grab it in live meetings), the attribution and their title/role, and the date. The date might be important so you can reflect back on where you were in a project or phase to give some context around a quote.

Where should it live?

This can be a Word, Google Doc, spreadsheet, note – really anything you can access quickly and will know where it is. This document should live on your personal drive or computer so if it is stored locally, remember to keep a copy sent to yourself after you update it.

What will I do with my boost doc?

First off, you have a place to come to when the imposter syndrome creeps in. You can look back at this document to remember where you’ve done well or overcome a difficult task if you’re on the struggle bus at any time.

The most important thing you will use this for is career advancement and raises.

1. Performance Reviews. Personally, I’ve used pull quotes when completing self evaluations. It’s been easier to talk about my accomplishments in the year through the lens of others than for me to do it myself.
2. Job Hunt. Stick a quote in a cover letter or add to your LinkedIn. Remove attribution and just list the title and maybe a small detail around the company. For example, you might have the quote followed by something like, “Digital Marketing Manager at a global food distribution company.”
3. Personal Brand. I stuck a few quotes on this site! Like point #2, I wanted to remove the attribution unless folks had given me written permission to use their names.
   
   

Remember the you receive feedback is data, and you don’t want to loss that data! Asking for a 10% raise is much easier when you’ve got observational data you can collect and pull from. And if you’re starting from square one, you can ask the people around you for some feedback: How am I doing? What are my biggest strengths? And besides that, a quick hunt through your mail or messaging system will probably give you a good starting point as well.

Anytime you get that warm feeling of a note from a co-worker, add it to your doc. And remember to pay it forward! You should (if you are not already) be giving props to folks you work with as often as it strikes you. Have them start a Boost Doc as well! Raise each other up and write that sh*t down.