Someone else’s opinion of you is a snapshot taken in bad lighting. Don’t hang it on your wall.

Anybody’s opinion of you was formed with partial information on a particular day. They saw one angle, in one mood, knowing almost nothing about your year, and what came out is a rough image rather than a portrait. Treating it as the verdict hands a near stranger authority over how you see yourself.

Take a judgment you have been carrying and ask what the person actually had to go on. Keep it as one data point among many. Give real weight to the people who have watched you over years, and much less to the rest.