Steve touches on a good point, if you can, get a go pro or something and record your landings. Landings I thought were rubbish weren't actually that bad and ones I thought were great turned out to be the instructors thumbs (tweaking).
Being able to dissect where
exactly I started to go wrong between the transition of approach and landing and what action I took at that point was very useful for me.
Also probably why I never had such a problem with approaches.
Sucks about the 40 hours thing, solo or under instruction though, flying is still fun
