My Personal Creed & Using it to Create my Internal Scorecard
Introduction
The term ‘Personal Creed’ is one that I’ve been loosely aware of for a while, and not just because it reminds me of ‘Assassin’s Creed’, although my memory isn’t good enough to recall who I first heard use it. The term ‘Internal Scorecard’ is most associated with Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger, and I was initially introduced to the term through the work of Shane Parish at Farnam Street. Other terms which you may have heard of which are heavily related, and some may argue are the same thing, are: ‘guiding principles’ ‘personal ethical standards’ or ‘personal affirmations’. So, what exactly am I talking about? The fundamentals of the concept – by whichever term you’ve heard, of or use yourself – revolve around a series of statements which guide how you want to live your life, and even why you want to live your life. More specifically, it revolves around the following aspects:
- It provides a guide for living your life the way you want to live it
- It provides you with a framework to help you make ‘better’ decisions
- It provides you with a framework to help you take ‘better’ actions
- It helps you access the quality of decisions and actions you have previously made, i.e. giving you the ability to learn from previous decisions and actions
- It helps you think more objectively and thoughtfully about the life you want to live
Fundamentally, I love the idea of having a Personal Creed, or guiding principles or personal ethical standards, because it encourages you to spend time and mental effort to define what is most important to you upfront, and then after that point you don’t need to worry about the on-going mental effort but still take quality actions and make quality, or ‘better’, decisions. Doing this will ultimately help you to get closer to being the person you want to be, help you create the life you want to live for your family, friends and yourself.
At this point it is important I take some time to cover what is meant here by ‘better’ decisions, given I’ve referenced it a few times already. ‘Better’ is a very subjective term and I don’t want to try and make it objective. What one person might think is ‘better’ for them another person might think is ‘worse’. The important point is not what is deemed good or bad – better or worse – it is about creating an environment where more often you are taking actions and making decisions which help get you where you want to be, or become the person you want to be. Drawing that line in the sand on what is most important to you not only signals to others who you are, it becomes a north star for you to strive for.
If you’ve been following this blog for a while you will know that I think very highly of the importance of habits, for more reading on habits check out this article, and I believe – based on the evidence – that habits have a considerable impact on what we do and how we spend our time. If you are interested to find out more about the power of habits, I’d recommend checking out the work of James Clear. So why am I talking about habits in an article on Creeds? Having your Personal Creed defined, and truly internalised, allows you to make better decisions easier because it makes it a habit. If every time you need to make a challenging decision you make a habit out of using your Creed, or you regularly review your decisions / actions against your Creed, it becomes second nature and therefore a habit.
Personally, I prefer the term “Personal Creed” to define the guiding principle, and I prefer the term “Internal Scorecard” when talking about objectively reviewing decisions and actions I’ve taken based on my Creed, it is for this reason I disagree with those who say all these terms mean the same thing. The reasons for me preferring these two terms over the others is twofold:
- Personal Creed – Whilst not a religious person I like the connotations I have subconsciously associated with the term ‘Creed’. For me a Creed is something to be followed for life, not a short term desire, and there are consequences of not abiding to it. Whereas ‘affirmations’, ‘principles’ or ‘standards’ can have exceptions, to me at least, a ‘Creed’ is stronger.
- Internal Scorecard – This term reminds me of the importance of the feedback loop. You should use your Personal Creed to access your decisions and learn from them, not just use it to help you with making a decision in the first place.
It is because of these reasons that the title of this article is ‘My Personal Creed and using it to create my Inner Scorecard’. I believe that unlocking the true value comes from not only defining your Creed but actively reviewing and accessing your decisions, on a regular basis to ensure you are implementing the Creed effectively, i.e. having an Internal Scorecard of assessment.
Personal Creed & Internal Scorecard Quotes
If you are yet to be convinced by my reasons in the value of defining your own Personal Creed, below are a selection of quotes from a series blog series I released on ‘My Favourite Quotes’ – a 7 part series, the links for which are in the table below. Specifically, these came under the section ‘Internal Scorecard / Creed’ within ‘Living A Good Life’ post.
- ‘I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me’ – Zadie Smith in ‘NW’
- ‘The little mental trick is to remember that success, money, fame, and beauty, all the things we pursue, are merely the numerator! If the denominator — shame, regret, unhappiness, loneliness — is too large, our “Life Satisfaction Score” ends up being tiny, worthless. Even if we have all that good stuff!’ – Shane Parish
- ‘Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.’ – Dr Seuss
- ‘If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment’ – Marcus Aurelius
- ‘The true measurement of a person’s worth isn’t what they say they believe in, but what they do in defence of those beliefs’- Edward Snowden
- ‘Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all the others.’ — Cicero
- ‘On one level, Wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one’s own advice’ – Sam Harris
I am writing this post shortly after, and inspired by, creating that series on ‘Favourite Quotes’, and I’d highly recommend starting with quotes if you are looking to create your own Personal Creed. One of the key reasons why famous quotes transcend time is because in a succinct, articulate, and brief way they express something profound about the human condition. Therefore, I found that starting with quotes helped me identify not only what was most important to me, and therefore important to be in my Personal Creed, but also how to articulate it better.
Forming my Personal Creed
In fact by reading the themes and topics of my favourite quotes (in the table below), you’ll get a very good idea of the types of statements which form my Personal Creed:
| Theme | Topic |
| Living a Good Life | Internal Scorecard / Creed |
| Always be learning | |
| Love & Friendship | |
| Positive Habits | |
| Life isn’t about Money | |
| Buying material items won’t make you happy | |
| Cultivate Stillness | |
| Success | Keep Going |
| Focus on Emotions | |
| Be Prepared | |
| Discipline | |
| Knowledge | |
| Embrace Change | |
| Health & Nutrition | Medicine |
| Longevity | |
| Lifestyle / Freedom | |
| Investing & Money | Fundamental Money Basics |
| Others Behaviour | |
| Judgement | |
| Time is your friend | |
| Appreciation & Acceptance | Be You / Accept Yourself |
| You control your mindset | |
| Take the difficult path | |
| Accept others as they are | |
| Prioritise, and be ruthless in doing so | |
| Action & Ownership | Take Ownership |
| Take Accountability | |
| Take Action | |
| Work hard, but smart | |
| Always Create Value | |
| Importance of perspective |
My Personal Creed / Internal Scorecard
Whilst the themes and topics within my favourite quotes helped me get closer to defining my Personal Creed, I found they lacked a level of tangibility. For example, ‘Importance of perspective’ is too broad to take a decision against. Therefore, I managed to take the above and distil it down further, the result is a list of 15 statements which form my Personal Creed, and when I access decisions / actions against them, my Internal Scorecard:
- Is this action / decision best for my family?
- Think & listen more than I talk
- Express love and show appreciation for those I love (don’t forget: ‘If you would be loved, love and be lovable.’ – Benjamin Franklin)
- Learning is a lifelong ambition, never achieved
- Don’t take the easy path, the challenging one will be much more rewarding in the end
- Work hard, but smart work without detriment of fundamental relationships & passions
- Show appreciation of effort, thought and reasons not outcomes
- Use habits & heuristics to drive as many decisions as possible. Reserve brain power for the difficult decisions
- Eudaimonia is happiness, not of pleasure, but of fulfilment and flourishing that comes with being virtuous (To find out more read this excellent article.)
- Costs always below income, vigorously fight against the hedonic treadmill
- Everything in moderation, including moderation
- Regularly review community, ensure it aligns to your direction / values, be ruthless in changing it if required
- Use skills as a force multiplier to help others succeed
- Spend a portion of time each year for social good
- Fame is a disease to be avoided like the plague, an ordinary life filled with love, happiness & fulfilment is the truly extraordinary
I don’t expect this Personal Creed to be exactly the same as the one I’m following in 50 years’ time, however in creating it I thought deeply and carefully to create something which will transcend time. There is also loose ordering of importance, however that is something I fully expect to change over time.
I’ve already mentioned above the importance of not only defining your Creed but actively reviewing the decisions you make based on your Creed, and it’s this actively that I call the ‘Internal Scorecard’. There are many ways you can do this review, and what works best for many people is a monthly review. You put a recurring 1hr slot in your dairy – typically on a weekend – to reflect on the ‘big’ decisions and actions you have taken in the last month and check that they align with your Personal Creed. However, this isn’t the way I do it. I prefer to use my Personal Creed proactively rather than reactively, and use it ‘in the moment’ rather than a monthly retrospective. Whenever I feel that I have a ‘big’ decision to make, or get that 6th sense of not being 100% happy with a certain course of action(s) I’m about to take, I will take a breath, stop, and think. I’ll pull up my Personal Creed and use it to help ensure I am thinking in a way best aligned to my Creed and not whatever mindset I happen to be in at the time. In reality, I’m sure using both approaches in tandem will provide the optimal results, however I’m conscious of the monthly review because it allows for hindsight to play a much larger role, something you’ll know I’m wary of, as seen in item 8 in my Personal Creed.
Conclusion
I have loved the path of discovery and the journey of learning I’ve gone on in defining my Personal Creed. As I said at the start, I came across the idea / wish to do this from reviewing the collection of quotes I’d captured organically over the years. But in spending the time researching it and defining my own Personal Creed, I believe I got to know myself better, and the things which make me happy and are most important to me. That’s not to say I am a happier person as a result, that’s a very difficult thing to know, simply that I have a better idea of what I enjoy and the kind of life I want to live. Even if you don’t end up wanting to write a Personal Creed of your own, I would highly recommend dedicating some time to think about the idea and read what other people’s are.
Ultimately, my view on why I believe having a Personal Creed, and using it as an Internal Scorecard to judge your actions and decisions, is so important is expressed excellently by the following quote from Shane Parish:
we’re only happy if we’re successful by an Inner Scorecard! We can’t just earn praise; we must be praiseworthy. We can’t just be loved; we must be loveable. It makes all the difference in the world. Our dissatisfaction with ourselves will always trump the satisfaction we feel with false rewards – Shane Parish
Additional Reading
If you have enjoyed this article and your interest in Personal Creeds has been peaked, I recommend starting with the below links:
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- https://fs.blog/2016/08/the-inner-scorecard/
- https://www.joyfuldays.com/how-to-write-a-personal-Creed/
- https://www.joyfuldays.com/personal-Creed-examples/
- https://www.lifemasteryhacker.com/blog/importance-personal-Creed
- https://www.jennymannion.com/2009/03/my-personal-Creed/
- https://www.pinterest.com/jlewisdancesing/personal-Creeds/