How to get a (minimum of) 25% salary increase this year?

You must be getting ready for annual appraisals. And if you are among the earthly mortals like me, you are probably thinking about what you can do to get a good salary increase. Ah, a good salary increase: does that sound like an oxymoron these days?

Getting back to our topic, the possibilities of a 25% salary increase seem to have become rarer than waking up to the noise of birds in a large city. Maybe the global warming has an impact on the organisational climate too!

So, how do we get back to the golden days of a 25% increase on your salary increase. Here is a game plan to ensure one for yourself this year, and year after year.

Warning: It involves some extra effort and newer ways of looking at things. Go ahead with reading the rest of this article, if you are ready for it. A good increase in your income is sure worth that extra effort....what do you think?

Keep your calculator (or calculator app) handy to get accurate results.

For this exercise, we will need to first calculate the your hourly rate.

Your hourly rate = (annual salary)/(40 * 50)

Assumptions made:

1. You work for 40 hours a week

2. You work 50 weeks a year (if you leave out 2 weeks for vacations)

To get the best results out of this exercise, replace the above assumptions with your actual figures of how many hours you work every week, and how many weeks you work in a year.

For example, if your annual salary is Rs.600,000 (Rupees Six Lakhs), your hourly rate = (600,000)/(40 * 50) = Rs. 300.

Which means that every hour of your working time is worth Rs. 300.

For the sake of this exercise, that an average person spends his 24 hours like the way it is shown below:

It is quite understandable that there is a likelihood that there will be many variations to this picture. Some of you believe in sleeping for 10 hours (really?!), or you might be living as a bachelor, in which case your family time is much lesser (assuming that you are calling your family for every day), or if you are in a city like Bangalore, your daily commute is likely to be 3 hours or more!!!

Going by the above example, about 22 hours is already occupied. You have two hours remaining everyday. In a year, it adds up to 500 hours (2 hours per day * 5 days in a week * 50 weeks in a year). Based on your hourly rate we just calculated, it amounts to Rs. 150,000 per year! Most people spend this time on chatting or mindlessly on social media, youtube, etc....2 hours a day!!!

Rs. 150,000 per year is 25% of your annual income of Rs. 600,000.

Average people spend their free time in entertaining themselves. Successful people invest their non-productive time in educating themselves.

The first question you need to ask yourself is, if it was actual money, will you throw away Rs. 600 every day?

The next question is, what can you do in your non-productive time?

The answer is a different one for everyone of us. Some of us will learn a new skill (for example: a new skill is NOT a new language, if you are a software engineer). You can pursue your passion and improve your skill level from an amateur level to a pro level. You can study about successful entrepreneurs, businesses and market trends, which will help you take advantage of the current times. You may decide to find a coach or a mentor to bounce off your thoughts and ideas to carve out a niche. You may write a book or direct a movie.

Most people compete to succeed in life in these 20-22 hours everyday and waste the remaining time in the name of relaxing. Successful people find ways to invest their non-productive time. Anything invested wisely will yield attractive returns!

I cannot predict exactly what you will do. But, I can tell you this with certainty: YOU have tremendous potential within you. Just by investing your spare time over the next couple of years into something more sensible and productive, you will create a major advantage over all the others who just let time slip by. You would have added much more value than just a 25% increase to your current salary.

Before you realize, you would be marching forward towards your goals and dreams. And the world will start to look upto you for inspiration!

Feel free to send me a direct message if you need help in getting started with your learning journey. My charges to guide you are quite high: i charge you with your COMMITMENT and WILLINGNESS TO LEARN!

All the best!