Professionalism is a non negotiable if you want to be taken seriously at work,
advance your career.
And if you want them to make it rain
it comes to your annual pay increase.
Yet every day,
ambitious professionals make these five mistakes
that cause them promotions, their reputation,
like I just said, cash in their bank account.
The good news is, it's really easy
to be professional at work. In fact,
you don't have to do anything.
You just need to stop doing these five things.
If you're ready to know what they are,
tap like button, and let's jump straight in.
The first mistake that you need to avoid to be
more professional is to stop talking about the two
taboo topics at work. That is religion and
politics. My friends, these are not things we
discuss in polite society. Now for this, I really
want to focus in on one that is becoming a bigger
problem. And from a poll that I did recently on my
LinkedIn profile, the vast majority of people
don't want to talk about at work or in a
professional setting. And that is politics. Now in
case you haven't been paying attention for last
few years, and you don't have a Twitter account,
I'll just say that political conversations have
gotten a little bit spicy, just a tiny bit. Now
straight up, you can believe whatever you want to
believe you can have whatever opinions you want to
have. And when it comes to politics, I'm pretty
sure that you're not going to change any of them.
And this is why it baffles me that anyone walks
into work, airing their opinions and expecting to
change other people's minds, it's not going to
happen. And in the cases where it is completely
irrelevant to work, it is creating unnecessary
distractions, unnecessary conflict, and is even
now as ridiculous as it is creating toxic work
environments. I have had so many of you comment,
saying how there is only one right and accepted
political ideology at your company, how alienating
it is, and what a toxic work environment it's
created. And it's not just one side doing it. Now,
I know that most of you around here are really
intelligent and very understanding. And you could
have these conversations in a really respectful
way. That creates a lot of understanding. The
thing is, most people are not like that. We need
to operate to how most people are so in my
opinion, it's better to leave this one out of the
conversation. But I am curious about your thoughts
on that one. So let me know in the comments. Now
let's go into the second mistake that makes you
look unprofessional at work and that's ignoring
work life boundaries are one of the biggest ways
that this shows up is in oversharing. Like coming
into work and telling Patti about the big fight
that you had with your partner last night. And you
know, Patty's gonna go tell everyone. And if you
don't know why patty is gonna be the one to go
tell everyone you need to make sure that you watch
my five villains at work video after this one. But
this might also be prying into people's lives and
asking them questions about their personal life
that just aren't work appropriate. However, work
life boundaries don't just include the information
that you share, or that you seek to learn about
other people. It also is quite functional things
like calling people at 8pm and expecting them to
jump online to answer a question for you.
Especially if it's not actually urgent. Another
way that the workplace boundary stomp really show
up as lack of professionalism is letting your
personal opinion of someone impact your
professional relationship with them. The thing is,
you don't have to like anyone. But if you don't
like someone, so you're leaving them out of
communications or leaving them out of emails or
refusing to give them help, you're not hurting
them, you're hurting yourself. And it is really
unprofessional. And this is going to show up in
multiple ways, including your performance review,
it can impact your promotions. The thing is, if
you're doing that and sabotaging their work, in
most cases, you are going to end up being the
person who looks bad in this situation. And I want
you to really pay attention here because this
isn't always big, intentional ways this can be a
subconscious thing. Now drawing from that one, we
need to move into the third mistake that people
make at work. And this is such a huge mistake that
I really think every professional makes at some
point in their career, you need to stay out of the
gossip, and specifically the bad gossip. And we
need to differentiate that there is good gossip at
work and there is bad gossip at work. So the good
gossip is things about is there changes happening
in leadership is there new initiatives that are
coming out is there murmurings of an acquisition
or new investment round coming up? These are all
things that actually have an impact on your day to
day job, and it's important to keep ripples on
that type of gossip. However,
it's the personal gossip that you want to stay out
of are Jonathan and Brad have anything did Alison
get Botox and oh my god, you'll never believe what
Ashley did last weekend. This is the bad gossip
that you need to stay the EFF away from. In order
to remain professional rule of thumb do not talk
poorly about other people on matters that don't
don't relate to work. In fact, I think it's just
good to not talk poorly about other people in
general. But especially when it comes to their
personal lives that have nothing to do with your
job, their job, the company, any of that stuff.
The thing is, is when you don't participate in the
bad gossip, you are less likely to fall into the
bad gossip. But this also goes back to the last
rule in terms of work life boundaries, and not
oversharing. Because you also do not want to be
the subject of the bad gossip at work. And I truly
believe that you when you maintain a high level of
professionalism, you are going to be much less
likely to be the subject of a lot of the malicious
gossip that can really fly around in an office.
And this actually leads me directly into the next
professionalism mistake that so many people are
making out work. And this one can be very subtle,
but it's one that will absolutely sabotage your
reputation, and even your career stop being
disrespectful at work. There are so many ways that
this mistake is made every single day in
corporations across the country and really across
the globe. Now, one of the mistakes that I see so
many professionals make is that when they're in a
meeting, or even having a conversation with a
colleague, they are distracted, they are scrolling
their phone, they are answering an email checking
in on a DM that they got. And that is signaling to
everyone that that they are with especially the
person that they're speaking to, that they don't
really respect them, and they're not really
interested in what's going on. Now this can also
look like being chronically late to meetings, even
if it's just two minutes, you are wasting someone
else's time, it might be interrupting others, even
if you didn't mean to pinging your coworkers late
at night, just in case they're online, which you
know, is going to notify them so they get online
or maybe with all the relaxation on the dress
codes you've made. You decided that sweat suits
our corporate attire these days, doesn't matter if
they're clean, or if you're clean. Okay, that's
probably not any of you. But it is something that
happens in workplaces and awkward conversations
need to happen. Now really, all of these things
really come down to work plays etiquette. And
this, honestly, is a lost art. And the thing is
with workplace etiquette is when you ignore it,
when you abandon it entirely. It is going to have
a severe negative impact on your career. Workplace
etiquette is really the baseline rules to succeed
in your career. And I think this is so important,
I'm going to make an entire video on it. So if
you're not subscribed already, make sure that
you're subscribed, tap the notification bell. So
you get that as soon as it comes out. But this
actually brings us to the fifth mistake that
people are making at work. And this is, I think,
one of the biggest mistakes and it makes such a
difference. And it truly just means that you need
to stop doing one thing. And that professionalism
mistake is that you're being negative at work.
Let's just be honest here. No one wants to work
with a complainer it's not enjoyable working with
people who are negative all the time. In fact,
this is something that again, can construct a
toxic work environment. And you don't want to be
known as the Debbie Downer in your office that
people don't really want to talk about because
they just know it's going to devolve into
complaining, you don't want to complain about
problems, you want to be the one who's known for
bringing forward solutions that make a high impact
at work. That is what's really going to get you
ahead now you guys know that I am here for a rant.
So I'm not saying never ever complain. Really what
I mean here is that we need to find ways to
complain that are most appropriate. And if you
just need a rant, have it with someone that you
trust, whether it's a co worker who's going to put
it in a vault isn't going to become a Rachel and
let everyone know you were complaining or find a
way to deal with the frustration without
complaining to coworkers and dragging them into
it. Like maybe you have some rat time after work.
Now I do want to know that if you're in a negative
or toxic work environment, or you have recently
left one, this can actually be something that it
becomes a habit when we do it because it is a
coping mechanism for stress at work because
complaining actually releases dopamine boonoo So
if you can begin to cultivate more positivity This
is also going to bring you more into a solution
mindset when you are dealing with those
frustrations at work that you kind of want to
complain about. And I think this is so important.
I actually have an entire video on it. So I want
you to go and check this one out right now to help
you stop complaining at work. But before you go if
this video has helped you give it a thumbs up
really helps my channel makes you my favorite
career bestie win win situation. As always my
friends thank you so much for watching. I will see
you in the next video. Bye for
now.