Everyone deserves to be respected, yet sometimes we engage in behaviors that make that respect less than forthcoming. It’s not that we’re bad people or that we have malicious intentions—most of the time, we’re completely unaware that our actions are working against us.
That’s because respect builds through so many small interactions. It grows when people feel heard, valued, and considered in their dealings with you. And the opposite is just as true.
Once you start recognizing these self-sabotaging patterns, though, you can begin making different choices.
1. Being unreliable with your word.
We’ve all done this at some point. You casually mention you’ll send that article someone asked about or promise to call your friend back. Then life happens. Work gets busy, your kid gets sick, or you simply forget, and suddenly two months have passed.
Whilst these things might seem minor to you, they often register very differently to the other person. They remember that you said you’d do something, and when you don’t follow through, it chips away at their trust in you. It doesn’t matter that you had good intentions or that “real life” got in the way—the effect is the same.
Of course, once or twice is understandable, but people who are consistently unreliable often find that others simply stop taking their commitments seriously. After all, why would they?
2. Not owning your mistakes.
There’s something almost instinctive about the way we deflect when we mess up. The excuses start flowing before we’ve even processed what happened. The traffic was impossible, the instructions weren’t clear, and our coworker should have reminded us about that deadline.
I get it. Nobody enjoys being wrong, and there’s usually some truth to our explanations. But when you immediately launch into justifications, the other person stops listening to your reasons and starts wondering why you can’t just say “I messed up.”
People remember how you handle being wrong far longer than they remember the actual mistake. Someone who can cleanly own their errors, apologize sincerely, and demonstrate they’ve learned something feels refreshing to be around. It’s counterintuitive, but this kind of vulnerability usually increases others’ respect for you rather than diminishing it.
3. Gossiping and talking behind people’s backs.
Gossiping feels so harmless, good, even, in the moment. And there are psychological reasons for that. You’re sharing information, processing the social dynamics around you, or bonding with someone over shared frustrations about a mutual acquaintance.
But beneath the surface, something else is often happening: you’re teaching people something important about your character. When you regularly share negative information about people who aren’t present to defend themselves, others will start wondering what you say about them when they’re not around.
Even if people participate in these conversations, they’re still mentally filing away information about your trustworthiness. And over time, you may start to seem less like a confidant and more like a liability.
4. Taking credit for others’ work (or not giving credit where due).
How you handle the recognition of other people’s work and contributions reveals volumes about your character, and not always in a good way. When you take sole credit for collaborative efforts or forget to acknowledge the people who contributed to your success, others notice and remember.
Sometimes this happens without any malicious intent. You’re excited about sharing good news, or you’re in a hurry, or you simply get caught up in the moment and forget to mention that it was actually Sarah’s idea or that you couldn’t have pulled it off without your team’s support. But these omissions, however innocent, can damage your relationships and your reputation.
You may think that sharing the limelight will detract from you, but that’s not how it works. Other people’s contributions don’t take away from your own. Taking credit for things that aren’t yours does, though.
5. Having poor boundaries (being a people-pleaser).
This one might surprise you because people-pleasing seems like it should earn respect, right? You’re being accommodating, helpful, and always available when someone needs something. Who wouldn’t like that in a friend, partner, or colleague? Unfortunately, though, chronic people-pleasing often has the opposite effect of what you’re hoping for.
When you say yes to everything, you end up overcommitted and underdelivering. You become the person others turn to when they need a favor, but not necessarily someone they genuinely respect and value as an equal. Meanwhile, the resentment that builds from constantly prioritizing others’ needs starts to leak out in subtle ways.
Healthy boundaries actually make you more reliable and more pleasant to be around. Instead of being the person who says yes to everything and then struggles to deliver, you become someone whose “yes” means something because it comes from a place of genuine availability rather than reflexive agreement.
6. Ignoring basic courtesy.
You can’t expect respect if you don’t give it out. And nothing signals respect for others like small courtesies that many people discount as trivial. Whether that’s thanking service workers, responding to invitations, clearing up your rubbish in shared areas, or holding the door open for someone, others notice more than you might think.
These behaviors create impressions that extend far beyond the specific moment. People make assumptions about your consideration and respect for others based on these seemingly minor interactions.
Of course, etiquette varies enormously across cultures, generations, and contexts. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. But treating people and the environment you share with basic decency is universal.
7. Being indecisive or wishy-washy.
“I don’t care, whatever you want to do.” “I’m fine with anything.” “You decide.” These phrases might seem accommodating and flexible, but when they become your standard response to most decisions, they start to feel like a burden to the people around you. What’s more, they pitch you as someone with no strong views or opinions who will simply bend to everyone else’s whim.
If you’re someone who genuinely struggles with decisions like me—maybe you have anxiety around making the “wrong” choice, or neurodivergence affects your executive function—there are ways to engage with the process that don’t diminish your power.
You might say, “I’m having trouble choosing between these options. Can you help me think through them?” or “These are the ones I definitely don’t want, but I’m flexible on the rest.”
You don’t have to have strong, vocal opinions about everything to be respected, but the right sort of people would prefer you to be an active participant in the decisions that affect your relationships and shared experiences.
8. Dominating conversations.
Sometimes people confuse respect with attention, and this can manifest in conversation hogging. People like this tend to have a response to everything and somehow manage to steer every topic back to their own expertise or experience, which, of course, is vast. They might interrupt others mid-sentence, but more often they just… never stop talking long enough for anyone else to contribute meaningfully.
Though it doesn’t usually come from a bad place, it leaves people feeling more like audience members than active participants.
Ironically, when this pattern emerges, people actually start to respect you less because dominating conversations with your expert opinions suggests you don’t value what others might have to say. Respect goes both ways after all.
9. Being fake or inauthentic.
Perhaps nothing erodes respect quite like the growing sense that someone isn’t being genuine with you. In contrast, most people respect a person who stays true to themselves, even if they don’t share the same views or passions.
It’s important to note that authenticity doesn’t mean sharing every thought or feeling without a filter—that’s not “being real”, that’s just poor emotional regulation. It does mean being reasonably consistent in your values and personality across different contexts, rather than becoming a complete social chameleon who changes entirely based on who’s in the room.
Of course, there’s an important difference between adapting your communication style to different audiences (which is actually a valuable social skill) and fundamentally misrepresenting who you are to win approval. You can stick to your core values and personality while making yourself more accessible to whoever you’re conversing with. Doing so actually demonstrates respect for the other person, which is likely to be reflected back at you.
Final thoughts…
Most of these behaviors happen unconsciously, which means changing them requires deliberate attention and practice, with a healthy dose of self-compassion.
The goal is to become more aware of how your actions land with others and more intentional about the impression you create, while staying true to yourself. Respect grows naturally when people can count on you to be reliable, honest, and genuinely considerate of their experience, even when nobody’s keeping score.
