The version of the story where you’re the hero every time is probably missing a few scenes.

Memory edits for coherence, and the most coherent story is the one where your choices make sense and everyone else’s do not. Scenes get dropped, not deliberately, just because they do not fit the through-line. The result is a version that is emotionally true and factually thin, which works fine until you need it to help you understand something.

Take a story you tell often and try to recall a moment in it where you came off badly. If nothing surfaces, that is itself a clue about the editing. Ask someone who was there what they remember, and let their version sit next to yours without correcting it.