A painter that I follow on social media made the following comment:
I don't paint what I see: I paint what I want to see.
When the painting is done, he gets to look at that, and if he enjoys looking at it, then it's a successful painting.
As a writer, I'm learning to apply a similar strategy. I write what I would like to read.
In a sense, we are all painters and writers. Our actions impact those around us, and that impact gets reflected back to us. It's mostly unconscious for me now, but I live within the knowledge that whatever I project to others will be reflected back to me.
This knowledge motivates me to project the best parts of my authentic self. It doesn't seem to work out well if I'm pretending, because it's the inauthenticity that gets reflected back.
In recent years as I've done honest work to recover from past relationship trauma, I've begun to find myself surrounded by people who seem to love me, and accept me for who I am. This was surprising to me at first, but then I realized that I'm seeing the reflection of what I do for them.
I'd be interested in hearing about ways that others have seen their actions and attitudes being reflected to them.