Reputation is important for every person. It helps, and sometimes hinders the building of relationships, career advancement. Moreover, the reputation does not always coincide with the true essence of its owner, and he himself does not always influence the creation of reputation.
What is reputation
Reputation – the idea of society about a particular person, his merits and demerits, lifestyle, peculiarities of thinking, behavior. This is how other people see a person. Reputation is made up of personality traits, behavior, lifestyle, achievements, displayed for everyone to see.
Reputation is a stable opinion, a social assessment of a person based on his past behavior. From this view, expectations arise about human behavior in the future. We can say that a reputation consists of stereotypes about a particular person.
Reputation can be positive, negative and tarnished:
- A positive reputation speaks of high trust in a person on the part of society. He is supported, encouraged, appreciated, and has high expectations for future actions.
- A negative reputation implies a low level of trust in a person. The public tries not to deal with him.
- A tarnished reputation means denigrating a person with rumors, leakage of hidden information from the past, compromising evidence, information with a double meaning, and slander.
If a person has a reputation as a sage, helper, kind person, then they will constantly turn to him for help, listen to advice. But if a person is spoken of as a chatterbox, a traitor, a deceiver, then hardly anyone wants to have a sincere conversation with him, trust secrets.
How to ruin your reputation
Making excuses in front of people is not easy. For example, few people believe in the change of a drug addict, alcoholic, or traitor. But you can spoil your self-image with just one act, including accidental or misinterpreted by someone.
We will not give bad advice, teach to spoil your reputation. Instead, let’s talk briefly about what can affect your reputation, create a bad impression:
- deception;
- gossip, rumors;
- failure to fulfill promises, obligations;
- hypocrisy, hypocrisy;
- fake photographic materials, video materials edited in such a way that they do not show the main person in their best form;
- compromising material presented to a wide audience;
- surfaced “skeletons in the closet.”
A reputation is never perfect, every person makes mistakes, tries different methods of achieving success. Not everyone succeeds in being an equally good specialist, friend, spouse, citizen, parent. Someone is a reliable worker, but an introverted and cold person. And the other is open to everyone and everyone, but at work he gets distracted, makes mistakes.
Thus, one person can have several reputations in different circles at once. Somewhere the reputation will be good, and somewhere bad.
How to fix and maintain your reputation
Is there any way to fix your reputation? Yes, but it will take a lot of time and effort. The idea of a person is formed on the basis of his actions in the past and present. On the basis of this, society assumes human behavior in the future. Therefore, any personal changes, especially positive ones, are met with skepticism by the environment. It will take a long time for the new behavior to overshadow the old way of life.
The situation is complicated by the fact that our brain is more willing to notice the negative, concentrates on it longer. Therefore, bad deeds will live for a long time in the memory of the environment and will be associated with a specific person.
Reputation is corrected by changing trust (willingness to support a person). To do this, it is necessary to change the attitude of the majority to the actions of the individual in the past, which will accordingly change the expectations from the future. The more positive facts from the past become known to the audience, the higher the level of trust will be. And vice versa: negative facts that surfaced rapidly reduce the level of trust.
Restoration and preservation of reputation implies the timely identification of defamatory information, its presentation to a wide audience in the right, favorable light. Much depends on the interpretation of the fact. The same information can be presented in different ways, in one case it will defame the reputation, and in the other it will improve it.
Every step a person takes contributes to his reputation. Can you be perfect in everything? The question remains open. Most psychologists agree that you can’t be good for everyone. You need to prioritize, live according to personal values. It is important to remember that actions contribute more to reputation than words. People listen, watch, but draw conclusions on the basis of tangible, real results, and not what you promised or said.
What is appreciated by all people and positively affects the reputation:
- honesty;
- diligence, commitment;
- professional competence;
- openness;
- punctuality, tact, attentiveness;
- the ability to admit their mistakes, to benefit from them;
- constant work on oneself, continuous self-development;
- conflict resistance, the ability to resolve conflicts;
- the ability to accept constructive criticism;
- mental stability;
- psychological flexibility;
- self confidence;
- social activity, sociability.
A person with a good reputation is subconsciously perceived as prettier, people are drawn to him. Individuals about whom we have heard something bad, on the contrary, even with correspondence acquaintance cause antipathy.
You need to determine what you yourself want to tell the world about yourself, what you want to convey, how you should be seen. Live according to this plan, declare yourself from the desired side. Be helpful, do not forget about responsibility for everything that you do and say.
Epilogue
A reputation is formed over months, years, therefore, even with a bad deed, there will remain those who will believe in a person and find an explanation for his actions. But if a person repeats such an act over and over again, then the whole environment will have a new idea of personality.
Reputation is a dynamic structure, and this is its main advantage. It can be controlled, changed in a positive way. The phrase “start all over again” is important if a person really decided to change.
