> Later, people at work told me they’d liked me better the way I was before.

Whenever you make a large change in yourself, you are going to alienate people in your life. This doesn't say anything about whether the change is good or bad.

The set of people currently in your life is highly biased towards people who like you the way you are. If they didn't, they wouldn't be in your life.

The more interesting question is after you make a change and get a new set of people, how do those people compare to your old set?