Success Triggers by Ramit Sethi – Reputation

One decision I made based on someone’s reputation was to restrict them on Instagram. They had a reputation of messaging daily, usually the same questions, and always expecting a reply. So first, I limited their interactions. And then when I posted something, they left several angry comments. Seeing this to be a pattern of their behavior (constantly demanding attention from me), I blocked them. Had they not messaged me daily from the beginning and left those angry comments as a one-time thing, I might have given them the benefit of the doubt. But, they already had built such a negative reputation. I doubt they consciously realize that this is the reason I blocked them. They might think it’s just from those negative comments alone, but it was more than that. It was how they were interacting with me in general.

Sometimes I think about how other people see me, but not always. It’s usually in accordance to appearance or what kind of work I’m doing. For appearance, I don’t really care about others’ opinions, though I do try to get them to see that the way they may be thinking can be damaging or shallow. I don’t shave or wear makeup, and I know some people would disapprove, but I want to be natural. I don’t want to put so much effort to change my appearance just because it makes people feel uncomfortable or just because they’re not used to how people actually appear without changing anything.

For other aspects such as my career, I want people to think good of me. But, that’s really subjective. Some people think it’s awesome to not work for anyone. Others think it’s good to have a “stable job”. Now, I guess I have a good answer. I want others to perceive my career path as “acceptable”, I guess. It only really matters when I’m looking for other opportunities. For example, if I want to become a peer specialist, I need some recent work experience or education. But for non-traditional work opportunities, it doesn’t matter so much. I just want to seem like I’m doing something with my life. I’d love to say “I don’t work for money, I work for pleasure.” I guess I technically could. I just feel like I have to elaborate more, and I “wouldn’t have enough to say”. This is something I could work on.

I’m not sure what friends would say about my reputation. I could ask. I think I’m a type to not finish things though. Well, sometimes I do, but I have to place systems. For example, I am blogging my answers to the Success Triggers course daily. I did skip one day and used that to review an old lesson. And when I ran into difficulty with wanting to watch the videos, I switched to reading the transcripts instead. That made it easier to complete. So now, I’m getting halfway through the course and I think I can complete it. It’s easy to finish something if I have it as one of my only tasks and I break it down into small chunks.

At uni, I would only have to go to classes twice a week. My schedule was set up that way. I made it so that I would complete all my homework between classes. And then five days of the week, I was usually free. I find that if I can guarantee that I will have more free time to myself later, then I am more motivated to get something done.

Some other possible negative traits would be being too quiet, being too nice, or lacking confidence. I think I would like to work actively on completing tasks (like finishing a book, finishing a course, or finishing a song), and lacking confidence for now. As for the confidence piece, I could work on taking more action. So, making sure I complete tasks would help me in that goal as well.