Your reputation is just everyone’s notes on your choices.

A reputation is not an opinion about your character, it is a summary of what people have observed you do, compiled without your input. That is why arguing with it rarely works, and why it lags behind real change by a season or two. It is also why it is fairer than it feels. It is made of actual evidence, even if the sample is incomplete.

Stop managing how it sounds and change the entries instead. Pick the thing people would predict about you that you do not want predicted, and give them contrary examples. The notes update slowly, and they do update.