How to write a personal principle about respect (that isn't just a rule about being polite)

Almost nobody thinks of themselves as disrespectful. Ask people whether they treat others with respect and nearly everyone says yes, sincerely, and most of them are telling the truth about how they treat the people whose opinion of them matters — a boss, a partner, a friend who could push back. That is not where respect actually gets tested. It gets tested with someone who cannot help you, cannot push back, and will likely never cross your path again: a stranger on a customer service line, the newest person in a meeting, someone doing a job you consider beneath the one you do. A personal principle about respect that does not name that specific situation is describing a version of you that was never really at risk.

Why "treat people with respect" fails as a rule

It fails for the same reason "be kind" does: there is no specific, checkable moment a stranger could point to and say that confirmed it or broke it, because almost every account you would give of your own week is already written to be flattering to yourself. The honest failure is rarely dramatic. It is the flat, slightly bored tone you use with someone who is paid to help you and has no way to object to how you're speaking to them. It is answering a junior colleague's question in three words when you would have given a senior colleague three sentences. None of that shows up if the only question you ask yourself is "am I a respectful person," because the answer to that question is almost always yes, and it is almost always beside the point.

Mine your own history instead of assuming you already do it

Don't start with "do I respect people." Start with a specific, recent interaction and ask:

• The last time someone in a service role made a mistake — got my order wrong, put me on hold too long — what did I actually say, and would I have said it the same way to someone whose good opinion I needed?
• In the last meeting I was in, whose question did I answer carefully, and whose did I answer while already thinking about something else? Was that difference about the question, or about who asked it?
• Have I ever assumed someone was less capable because of how they spoke, what their job title was, or what they were wearing — and changed how I talked to them because of it, even slightly?
• Have I said something about a person while they were within earshot, on the assumption that they either couldn't hear it or wouldn't understand it?

The pattern that turns up is rarely "I am disrespectful." It is usually something narrower and more specific — your patience and your attention scale with what someone can do for you, or with how senior they are in a specific room, and you have never noticed the scaling because it never once cost you anything you could feel. That specific shape is the actual principle. "Treat people with respect" will never touch it, because it was never written for the moment where the failure actually happens.

Write the rule about the moment respect actually breaks, not the trait

"Be respectful" doesn't name a moment. A rule that does might read: When someone doing their job makes a mistake, I say what I need in the same tone I'd use with my boss, and I don't describe the mistake to a third person while they're still standing there. Or, if the pattern you found was about status in a room rather than service interactions: The newest or most junior person's question gets the same length of answer as the most senior person's. Both are checkable — someone watching the specific interaction could tell you whether you did it — and both cost something, which is the second test a real principle has to pass. The first costs you the two extra seconds of an even tone when you're irritated; the second costs you the shortcut of giving your real attention only to people who can affect your standing.

Attach behavior standards you can actually check

Underneath a rule like the newest person's question gets the same length of answer, useful standards are concrete: I can repeat back, in my own words, what a junior colleague argued before I disagree with it; I address the person in front of me directly instead of talking about them to someone else standing next to them; I do not make a comment about someone's competence that I would not say to their face. None of these require performing warmth harder. They require noticing the specific, repeatable moment where your effort quietly drops based on who's in front of you, which is the only part of "respect" you can actually build a rule around.

Where this differs from kindness and from boundaries

A respect principle and a kindness principle look similar from the outside — both often show up as being gentle with someone — but they guard against different failures. Kindness is about the warmth or generosity you choose to offer; you can withhold it without ever being unkind, simply by being neutral. Respect is about whether you diminish someone's standing or agency even while being perfectly polite to them — a warm tone while explaining something in an unnecessarily simplified way is not disrespectful in tone, but it is disrespectful in substance. Boundaries, meanwhile, are about what you protect in your own space; respect is about what you do in someone else's. A principle about boundaries governs what you allow toward yourself. A principle about respect governs what you do toward people who have no way to enforce a boundary of their own against you.

Stress-test it against a real interaction

Take one specific exchange you can still remember clearly — the call where you were short with someone who was just doing their job, or the meeting where you realized afterward you'd cut off the same person three times without noticing. Run the principle against it. If it would have changed what you did in that moment — caught the flat tone before it left your mouth, made you give the full answer instead of the fast one — it has teeth. If you'd have done the same thing anyway, the rule is describing a different situation than the one that's actually costing you, and it's worth going back to your own history to find the real one.

Respect sits mostly in the social category, one of the six CreedOS ships templates for, alongside efficiency, emotion, money, health, and cognition, each with curated creeds and behavior standards already written that you can take as they are or edit until they sound like your own history. It's free, with no in-app purchases.