We all have a narrative in our heads about how things work, about how others think of us, about how things will turn out, about what is important to those around us. 

These narratives go through reinforcement (both positive and negative) as per the real events and outcomes that we encounter in the real world. 

And this leads us to modify and update the narratives that we hold or replace them with new ones.

There are several narratives that never get tested through real events in this way. This is especially true in the realm of how we think others think about us, because we often only infer these through actions of others. And we can be quite biased in our inferences towards the narratives that we already hold. 

Rather than direct our efforts towards forming more narratives, we should be directing them to objectively validate the efforts we hold instead.

Easier said than done, though.