A few years ago, I had a mentoring conversation with a young woman who was very disappointed with her year end bonus. She felt let down, taken advantage of, and worse, unappreciated.

After she told me the whole situation, I asked her: “How much money would have made you happy?” She told me an amount of about $4,000.

I then said to her: “Forget about the money for a minute. Do you like your job? Do you like coming into work every day? Do you like the people you’re working with? And are you learning?”  The answer to all these questions was yes.

Here was my advice. Yes, it’s disappointing. But don’t make the mistake of overvaluing one element of your job, which is your compensation.  Having a “yes” answer to all those questions is worth so much more than $4,000.  You will look back at your career and laugh that you gave $4,000 so much importance.

So here’s the advice I did give her.

Before the compensation process starts for the next year, have a conversation with your manager about expectations.  Assuming you’ve got the goods in terms of performance, I would suggest saying something like this:

“You know, last year I was very disappointed with my year end compensation. I believe I’ve continued to be a strong performer for this team. And while I know you can’t make any guarantees, I would really appreciate anything you could do for me this year so that I don’t get disappointed again.”

That’s it. It doesn’t mean it will necessarily get better, because there are lots of factors at play. But I guarantee you that your manager will think twice.