You can’t be the batter and the umpire. Let someone else call your strikes now and then.

Judging your own performance from inside it is a conflict of interest, however honest you are trying to be. You know what you meant to do, you can feel how hard you were trying, and both of those quietly push the verdict your way. Somebody outside has only the result to go on, which is the whole point of asking them.

Hand the call over to one person this week: a coach, a teacher, a manager, a friend with no reason to flatter you. Ask for their reading rather than their encouragement, then sit with it for a day.