Let some people misunderstand you. Correcting everyone is a full-time job with no paycheck.

Being misread is uncomfortable, and the urge to fix it runs strong: one more message, one more explanation, one more attempt to make somebody see it correctly. The catch is that people committed to a version of you rarely update it, and every correction hands them fresh material. Real hours go into managing an opinion you were never going to control.

Decide who actually gets an explanation from you. The short list is people who are in your life and would take it seriously. Everyone else can hold the wrong version while you go live in a way that slowly makes it look silly.