Being hard on yourself and being honest with yourself are not the same thing. One helps.

Harshness feels like rigour, which is why it gets mistaken for accountability so often. Calling yourself useless after a bad test carries no information at all: it does not name the chapter you skipped or the hour you started revising. Honesty is specific and points at something you can change. Harshness is general and mostly points at you.

When the commentary starts up this week, ask whether it names an actual action. If it does not, translate it into what happened, what you would do differently, and what comes next. You can be completely unflinching about the facts without talking to yourself like an enemy.