Building a reputation can be compared to building a tower. You need a good foundation, it happens one little bit at a time, and sometimes you don’t see how much progress you’ve made until you step back or someone tells you about it. Once you’ve put enough consistent work into it, people often see it before they even see you.
But let’s say you’ve built up a tower of bad reputation and you’ve changed now. The old tower is still visible while you work on the new, better one. The new one will take some time to build and the old one will take some time to decay. When changing your reputation, realize that it will take time for people to realize you don’t live in the old tower anymore. Only those closest to you will know you’re working on a new tower, and they will be able to see if you’re faking it and still living in the old tower.
But unlike a tower, you are building your reputation whether you are doing it on purpose or not. Take care what kind of tower you’re building and why you are doing so.