There's a grain of truth to it. Being too hard on yourself to the point where you're avoiding hard work because of the guilt is counter-productive. It's produ

There's a grain of truth to it. Being too hard on yourself to the point where you're avoiding hard work because of the guilt is counter-productive. It's productive to forgive yourself for messing up, then make realistic improvements. It's unproductive to just wallow in a lack of discipline, or to spend more time beating yourself up than actually making improvements, or to try to achieve impossible goals to make up for past mistakes. I think a big problem with general advice is that a lot of people listen to the advice that isn't good for them, because that's the kind of advice they already follow (even though it's terrible for their situation). The partial solution is to think of yourself as a friend, and ask what you'd advise them - that cuts through a lot of the special pleading we make for ourselves.