Map Out Your High 6 Figures’ Path to Success

Ever wondered what it actually takes to go from $50K to $500K in compensation?

Earlier in my career, this gap seemed so big that I couldn’t even imagine how to get to high 6 figures, but looking back I can now share what were the actions that led to this growth:

Setting ambitious and sometimes unrealistic goals
Obsessively looking for opportunities to grow and level up
Committing to the process and doing the work
Staying consistent when everyone gives up

Let’s dive into each of these so you can start mapping out your own path to success.

Dream big

When I first mapped out my road to success I set a goal that was so ambitious I was embarrassed to share it.

I was a manager at the time, leading a small team and my dream was to become the CMO of a hypergrowth startup. There were probably 8 degrees of separation and levels of seniority between where I was and where I wanted to go, but it didn’t matter. I had a north star. A goal. A career destination.

I was so obsessed I had a mental picture of what it would look like when I finally achieve my goal. That destination guided me for years. It helped me choose the right jobs, it helped me say yes to opportunities that moved me toward my goals, and it helped me say no to opportunities that didn’t align with where I was going. This vision forced me to get creative, and it motivated me to stay consistent when things didn’t go my way.

Dreaming big is essential when you want to have big breakthroughs.

If you only focus on what is readily available, if you limit yourself to the next step, you may miss out on opportunities for exponential growth. You’ll end up settling for ‘good enough’, instead of pursuing ‘amazing’.

Let me give you an example. One of my clients was a leader with a team of five. Recently he got a new manager that essentially took his place and he went back to being an individual contributor on the team. My client was not happy and decided to talk to HR about exploring other opportunities with the company. He was offered a few roles, all of which were as an IC and not as a manager. When we jumped on a call to discuss his options, he was only considering the roles that were offered to him.

It never occurred to my client he could CHOOSE what he actually wants to do and then ask for it or change employers to get the role he wants. He assumed he needed to settle for what he was offered so he couldn't see past that.

When you don’t have a vision it’s hard to imagine what is possible.

Digg for opportunities

It’s not enough to dream big, you need to turn big ambitious goals into small digestible action items. You want to move from high-level vision to practical actionable tasks.

The way to do that is to identify what it will take to achieve your goal, and then create opportunities to gain the skills and the experiences needed to get there.

For example, let’s say you are working toward an executive position and you identify ‘presentation skills’ as a gap in your experience. The next step would be to come up with ideas to improve your presentation skills. Here are a few ideas:

Become a public speaker
Join a ToastMasters meetup
Volunteer to speak at an “all hands”
Take communication lessons

You will then choose one idea and break it down into actionable steps.

If you choose to become a public speaker you will need to:

Decide on a topic for your keynote
Write your keynote
Identify events where you can volunteer to speak
Pitch yourself as a speaker

This is how you go from an ambiguous goal like ‘presentation skills’ to a specific action item you can easily execute.

The process of digging for opportunities and breaking them down into practical action items is how you achieve big goals.

Pro tip: markets shift, companies open and close, and people come and go. The landscape keeps changing and change means new opportunities. The best thing you can do to set yourself up for success is to revisit your goals every month or so and dig for new opportunities.

Commit and do the work

Mapping your high 6 figures path to success is not something that happens overnight. It’s a process. High 6 figures success requires commitment and consistency to see real growth. That means you have to commit to investing in your career. You need to put in place a system that keeps you accountable.

For me, that’s my career growth routine.

Every week I make time on my calendar for:

1. Reviewing my week and planning the week to come

2. Working on my career goals

3. Learning

Creating a habit around my career is what allowed me to stay consistent and eventually see compounding results.

Staying consistent when everyone gives up

A few years ago my husband shared a metaphor that stayed with me.

I was frustrated at the time because I wasn’t able to land the executive role I’d been dreaming about. At that point, I’d had dozens of interviews and no offer. I was ready to give up and just stay at my current job when he told me this:

Imagine climbing a tower. There are no windows in this tower so when you look up you see stairs. When you look down all you can are stairs. You keep climbing but it looks like you are not making any progress.

That was me. I’ve had so many interviews and no results, but technically I was still climbing. I couldn't see it, but I was making progress.

I learned which roles were not a good fit so I refined my search. I learned what hiring managers were looking for so I improved my pitch, and after so many interviews I gained more confidence.

I didn’t get the result I wanted, but I was making progress. I couldn’t see it because I was defining progress as the end result.

This is what most people do. They quit before they get to the top floor because they fail to see the amount of progress they’ve made. They may be one floor away from reaching their goal, but they can’t see it.

The high achiever in me couldn’t take the chance, so I kept going… and just a few weeks later I got the role I wanted. And to think I almost gave up…

It’s not easy to stay consistent when you can’t see immediate results, but you have to trust the process.

Both faith and fear require you to believe in something that hasn’t happened yet.

Choose to have faith in yourself and keep going. That’s how you’ll make meaningful breakthroughs.