ou probably know that it's important to be professional if you want to have a successful career, but what does that actually mean?

你可能知道，如果你想要获得职业生涯的成功，表现得更职业是非常重要的。不过这到底是什么意思呢？

After all, professionalism is rarely taught; you're supposed to pick it up on your own through a combination of observation and osmosis, but that's not always easy to do. And learning on the job can be fraught with land mines, since you might not even see your mistakes coming.

毕竟，很少会有人教你怎样才是职业，人们希望你从观察和潜移默化中学习。而这个学习的过程总是会让你在不经意间踩到地雷，因为你不知道你什么时候会犯错。

So without further adieu, here are 10 key elements of professionalism that you should master early in your career.

所以，就不多介绍了，以下是你在职业生涯初期必须掌握的10条职业的原则。

1. Pay attention to the cultural norms in your organization, and follow them. If you watch how others in your office operate, you'll learn all sorts of important things about "how we do things here." For instance, you might observe that everyone shows up precisely on time for meetings, that they modulate their voices when others are on the phone, and that people rely on email for non-urgent questions. These are important signals for what will be expected of your own behavior – and you'll come across as tone-deaf if you ignore them.

1.注意观察你所在企业的文化规范，并遵从这种规范。只要你观察你周围的人是怎么做的，你就能学到有关“我们在这儿怎么做事”的一切。比如说，你可能会观察到每个人在开会的时候都会恰好准时到达，他们讲电话的时候会调整自己的音量，他们在处理非紧急事务时更依赖邮件。这些都是关于你该怎么做的重要暗示。——而你如果无视了这些事情，就会被看作是个不懂得察言观色的愣头青。

2. Be pleasant and polite to people, even if you don't like them. You will have to work with people whom you just don't care for, and even with people who aren't very nice. You'll look far more professional if you don't let them get under your skin and instead remain cordial and easy to work with.

2.友善而有礼貌地待人，即使你不喜欢他们。你会需要和那些你根本不关心的人一起共事，甚至还要和那些脾气很差的人共事。如果你能不被这些人激怒，而是保持亲切温和，那么你一定会被认为相当职业。

3. Take work seriously. If you make a mistake or something doesn't go well, don't brush it off or use cavalier responses like "my bad." Accept responsibility for your part in what went wrong.

3.认真对待工作。如果你犯了个错，或者某件事进展不顺，不要不屑一顾或是傲慢地回应：“我的错”。当事情出了问题时要对你负责的部分但负起责任。

4. Speak up when work isn't getting done on time or when there are problems with a project. Part of taking real ownership for you work means that you're responsible for alerting your boss when things are going off course, rather than trying to ignore it or just hoping that no one notices.

4.如果工作没有及时地完成，或是项目出了什么问题时将它提出来。为工作负责的一部分意味着你有责任在事情正在脱离正轨的时候提醒你的老板，而不是试着无视它或寄希望于别人注意不到。

5. Realize that getting feedback on your work – even critical feedback – is part of the job; it's not personal. Getting angry or defensive or otherwise taking it personally when your manager gives you feedback can be an easy trap to fall into, but it will make you look less professional. And after all, if you care about doing your job well and advancing, don't you want to know where you need to do better?

5.意识到获得工作上的反馈——即使是批评意见——也是工作的一部分，而不是个人事务。在经理给你提出反馈意见时，很容易使人表现出恼怒和防御性，或是把它理解为个人事务。这么做就会让你显得不那么职业。毕竟，如果你很关注如何能把工作做好，你难道不希望知道你在什么地方能做得更好吗？

6. You need to write clearly and professionally. That means no text speak, and correct punctuation and capitalization. This doesn't mean that you need to write as if you were addressing the Queen of England, but you do need to take care that you don't sound like you're texting a friend from a nightclub either.

6.写清晰，职业的书面语。这意味着写书面化的语言，使用正确的标点符号和大小写。这并不意味着你要像给英国女王写信一样，但你必须注意到你的语气不能像给俱乐部的朋友写信一样。

7. Be flexible. Yes, your workday might formally end at 5 p.m., but if staying an hour late will ensure the newsletter goes to the printer on time, you should do it unless that's truly impossible. That doesn't mean to ignore important commitments in your own life, but you shouldn't let important work go undone just because of your quitting time. Similarly,be flexible when it comes to changes in work plans, goals or other things that might evolve as work moves forward.

7.懂得变通。没错，你的正常工作时间或许应该在下午5点结束，但如果你多待1个小时，就能确保通讯文件能及时打印出来，你就应该这么做，除非确实不可能。这并不意味着忽视你个人生活中的责任，你只是不应该仅仅因为到了你下班的时间就让重要的工作拖下去。同样地，当工作计划、目标或其他事情发生变化的时候，你也要懂得变通。

8. Show up reliably. Unless you have pre-scheduled vacation time or you're truly ill, you should be at work when they're expecting you to be there. It's not OK to call in sick because you're hung over, or because you stayed up late last night watching soccer, or because you just don't feel like coming in.

8.出勤稳定。除非你有预先计划好的度假时间，或者真的生病了，你就应该按时工作。只是因为你要出去玩，或者前一晚通宵看球了，或者只是不想来上班就请病假是不对的。

9. Be helpful, and do more than solely what's in your job description. The way that you gain a great professional reputation – which will give you options that you can use to earn more money, get out of bad situations and not have to take the first job that comes along – is by doing more than the bare minimum required. That means always looking for ways to do your job better, helping out colleagues when you can, and not balking at new projects.

9.对别人有所帮助，不要仅仅做你工作说明书上的工作。能为你获得职业声誉的方式，就是不仅仅做那些最低要求的工作。职业声誉能在你想挣更多钱、脱离不好的局面或是不想做第一个交给你的工作时给你提供更多的选择。这也就是说你要经常寻找把工作做得更好的方法，帮助同事们做些力所能及的工作，不要反对新推出的项目。

10. Don't treat your manager as your adversary. If you see your manager as someone whose job is to enforce rules, spoil your fun and make you do things you don't want to do, it will show – and it won't look good. Treat your manager as a team-mate, one who has authority over you, yes, but one who's working toward the same goals as you are.

10.不要视主管为仇敌。如果你把你的主管看做是一个强制你遵循规则，挤压你的乐趣，还让你做你不想做的事情的人，这会表现出来——而且看起来不可能很好。你应该把你的主管看作是团队的一员，他对你拥有一些权力，但他和你工作的目标是一样的。