As we enter 2019, many professionals are reflecting on their year as well as thinking about the year to come—and for many professionals, this time of the year is accompanied with an annual review. While you may have just gone through a review process, it’s never too early to start thinking about your next annual review and what accompanies it—typically feedback, constructive criticism, and the prospect of a raise or a promotion. If you weren’t pleased with your performance this year, or if you’re looking to earn that promotion, now is the time to start preparing. If you’re wondering how to get promoted next year, start with these steps:

Reflect on your recent review

At the start of the year, you have a clean slate and a year’s worth of work to reflect upon. Additionally, you may have had a performance review recently. While it may be easier to listen to feedback on your performance, actually internalizing that feedback can be more difficult. But remember, earning a promotion often means that you should be able to prove that you’ve improved upon your current performance. As a result, consider how you can implement critical feedback at the start of the year.

Ask questions as you go

When you start to near the end of the year, you should be able to answer some critical questions pointing toward earning that promotion. As a result, be sure that you ask yourself these questions early so that you’re prepared when the time comes:

• What are some of your biggest or most impactful accomplishments this year?
• Have you gained more responsibility from the beginning of the year until now? How so?
• How have you helped your organization as a whole achieve their goals?
• Did you gain any new certifications/degrees that should be considered?

Additionally, considering these questions at the start of the year means that you can seek out ways in which you can hopefully answer them by the end of the year.

Measure your success

Keep in mind that if you’re hoping to be granted a raise or a promotion, it works best if you can prove to your supervisor that you’ve definitively earned it—with numbers.  Now that you know where you’ve made the biggest strides, assess how you can measure success in those areas.  Whether it’s production numbers, sales numbers, traffic, or customer reviews, you can show that you’re not arbitrarily asking for a reward; through these numbers you can prove just how valuable you are as an employee.

Keep tracking

In order to show your improvement right up until the end of the year, continue tracking your progress in the most important areas.  Use an excel sheet to document, and use the data to clearly define where you’ve made the biggest strides.  Additionally, adopting this habit of tracking your work can make you more accountable for your work.  When you consistently check in with your progress, you can not only set more measurable goals, but you can also improve at a faster rate.

Articulate with numbers

When it comes time for your annual review, attend your meeting with these numbers in hand.  Before jumping into your request, be sure to carefully listen to your supervisor’s comments on your performance; you may be surprised at what they have to say.  After you’ve heard them out, start by going through the data you’ve assembled to clearly communicate to your supervisor what you’ve accomplished and how you tracked these results.  Additionally, you can use the above questions to show how you’ve grown over the year. Afterward, follow it up with your request for more compensation or responsibility.  From your manager’s perspective, it is harder to say “No,” when faced with concrete proof that your employee has improved.  By saying, “Because I’ve accomplished X over the past year, I think I deserve Y,” you’re far more likely to hear a “Yes,” in response.