I think we all need to get over ourselves
A while ago, there was a screenshot circulating on online spaces, of someone blatantly saying you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much. Personally, I enjoy introspecting, and I've based most of my writing on Bear on lived experience, learned lessons, and self-analysis. Still, I believe there exists a thin line between productive self-examination and ceaseless rumination (which eventually dilutes into self-deprecation, as I frequently observe).
It's tricky not to build a whole identity around watching yourself watch yourself, especially if you are someone who enjoys analyzing your thoughts and behavior. To an extent, looking inward is a critical tool for growth, but you shouldn't stay inside for too long - you shouldn't ruminate and dwell. You go inward to yourself, you find what you need, and you get out of there immediately, back to your actual life that's waiting for you.
Simultaneously, not everything needs to be crystallized into meaning. Oh, I am sad today because I messed up at work, which means I am a failure, which means I will stay up until 3 am today, reconstructing the incident frame by frame in the name of deep introspection. It feels responsible, even virtuous, but look at the distance you traveled: you started with "I missed a deadline" and ended up concluding "I'm an imposter who has been fooling everyone."
This isn't useful insight. Spiraling isn't insight or a lesson learned. Maybe you just messed up at work - that's all there is to it. It doesn't need to be turned into a verdict of your character or self-worth. Maybe some feelings and experiences are like the weather: the wind sways for as much as it wants to, then in the flicker of a moment, gone. Not everything that hurts needs to be analyzed. Sometimes it's just a shitty Monday that needs to be lived through, and like a bad weather, gone in a flicker.
These days, I've been overly self-critical in the name of growth. I re-read some journal entries from few days ago and winced at how mean I was being on myself. I think this is a reminder to me, and perhaps to you, that you can exist just as you are, with all your mess-ups and mistakes, without having to turn them into a self-deprecating conclusion about your worth.