All perceptions of you, good or bad, flattering or critical, are external to you. They are not internal qualities of you. They are external impressions perceived by someone else.
There is hidden danger in trying to manage people’s impressions of you. Eventually and inevitably, you will equate external perceptions of you with your inherent worth or internal value.
Your inherent worth as a person is yours from birth. Nothing can change that and no one can diminish, deny, or discard it. On top of that, your internal value comes from the things in your control. And other people's perceptions of you are not in your control.
Attaching any amount of your internal value, let alone your inherent worth, to external impressions is to put control of your life in the hands of someone else, sometimes total strangers.
The value of external impressions, no matter how accurate or inaccurate or how much they praise or condemn, is like a shadow against the wall attempting to represent a real object. Even the sharpest shadow cannot capture the reality of an object, just as the strongest external perception of you cannot capture and does not change the truth of who you are.
The time is now. Do the work.
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