Well I think the idea is that many of us hold ourselves to a much higher standard than we do others we care about. So it follows that if you give them grace, forgiveness, tolerance — why can't you give such grace, forgiveness, tolerance to yourself whom you should also care about?Seeking to improve and be better is great, but we aren't perfect little robots. At the end of the day — despite maybe knowing better — you still did X, so move past the self-bashing and think constructively how to improve going forward.

I'll further note that we like to think of ourselves as this singular consciousness with a driver at the head, but let's be honest... There are a whole host of competing voices in our heads with some sizable control of our faculties from different regions ranging from the Limbic system to the ACC — leaving aside the gut-brain axis that can pretty easily hijack your perception and priorities. For me it has been helpful as of recently to think of my state of mind as a collection of these voices with differing priorities. Thus changing my environment can keep the varying cabinet members content; that's what you can do as the CEO in the prefrontal cortex.