Using this principle is exactly how you can shape who you are because essentially all that you are is an accumulation of the decisions you make. The perception that people form of you is simply the collection of these decisions that they know about and whether they were right or wrong based on that person's mental framework. The paradigm, or mental framework, of a person acts as a sort of filter that is used to push facts through and decide whether the other person's actions are in alignment with whatever the previous person believes is right and wrong. The majority of the time people make an assumption/judgement of you way before finding out the whole truth; most judgements of other people are based on partial and fragmented information.
With this in mind, there is some good news and some bad news. You want the bad news first? The bad news is that many people have formed an opinion of you and it will not change no matter what you do. The good news is two part:
A. If the person whose opinion of you is in question is so closed-minded that he cannot get over something that you did in the past, then there is absolutely no requirement that this particular person be in your life at all. Therefore, kick him out of it! This might seem drastic and will most likely be emotionally difficult to perform, but it is most certainly essential. Life should be looked at as a beautiful rose bush that must be pruned to assure that growth is optimal. The health of the flowers is the most important thing, and anything that hinders that health must be trimmed away. The truth is that this life is just too short to tolerate negative people that do not improve the quality of life itself. They are the thorns of your life and the only way to grow and move forward is to cut them out. Their sole purpose is currently serving to take up valuable time that could be filled with other useful things and to make your mindset a bit more negative than it would have been otherwise. Here is a quote from none other than the Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself to illustrate life's brevity.
"Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter."
When you truly make an effort to understand the vast and unfathomable concept of time, it seems inevitable that you would end up contemplating the shortness of this life. Death looms and makes itself known. It is inevitable and no man will escape it, so what sense does it make to worry about it? The Stoics stressed the importance of being ready for death at all times. Their reasoning was that death could arrive at our doors at any time, and to not be ready would be foolish.
Becoming aware of how you react to things is the first step to taking control of your own life. Up until this point, you have been controlled by the way you have always done things. The ways that you have learned how to react to things up until this point have determined your mood and ultimately how happy you are. So this is a tool that provides the ability to control your own happiness.
B. The second part of the good news is the most potent. Upon full realization of the impact that this principle can have in your life, not only can you begin to shape relationships, you begin to shape life. If you make the decision to start making the people around you happy, then they will certainly be happy and you will be seen as the person who is a good friend to be around. Their happiness will lead to your happiness. Paradoxically, if you work to make them happy, you will become happy. This is the teaching of all of the greatest spiritual teachers. If you want to do absolutely anything, then do it with vigor and passion and set your path toward that thing and magical improvements will begin to be made.
The source of this magic is the positive feedback loop that starts to become created. Slowly, over time, momentum is built up and good things begin to leap-frog off of one another. The next thing you know, the path that you pursued because you believed it would bring happiness ends up bringing multitudes more than previously thought possible. The extent of the power of change this principle can bring lies solely within the heart and will of the person using it. If you want radical change, then take radical chances and make radically different decisions than you do now.
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