I believe this is where the highly self-critical perspective has its roots. From the outside, it looks like a bunch of compliment baiting, but actually it seems to be a necessary. Without that intense scrutiny from yourself, how are you supposed to grow when you don't know what you did wrong?

This is also partially why some creatives stop making progress even if financially successful to a degree. They get enough fans, they make enough money, so they stop looking for things to nitpick and start blindly believing. See Rob Liefeld, who notoriously has received a lot of bad feedback about his work but way after he was successful in the 90s - to the point where he's gone on record saying he doesn't know why he's so "controversial".