I recently rediscovered a passion for fighting games.
There's this great channel about it called Core-A-Gaming and in his review of the Daigo Umehara (one, if not THE ONE, best Street Fighter players ever) book, the host mentioned this ''Dreyfus model of skill acquisition''.
It boils the learning of a skill in 5 parts. The first two stages, Novice and Advenced Begginer, are when you start and is getting familiar with the activity. You stick to the rules, you treat all elements with equal importance, your perception on the subject is limited.
Then, comes the Competence stage. And with it, comes fear.
Being Competent, as seen by this model, is when you start to understand your craft well enough to clearly see your own mistakes. To see how far from ''truly good'' you are.
I think there's truth in it. I think the fact you hold yourself to this kind of standard is proof that you already have a level of craft advanced enough to feel the fear it comes from wanting to be good but not feeling you quite measure. So there is that.
I absolutely understand this feeling, in some form. I believe many, if not all, do. In fact, is the one thing I'm feeling the most nowadays: I feel mediocre at all I ever did. It sucks. You have to hold yourself to some standard but honestly, if you're like me, this gets out of control really freaking fast.
The way I find to cope with it is, as cliche as it is, to go one day at a time. It's a struggle, but you only have to fight it one day at a time. It never ends, but so does growth. It never ends. If you keep going, you WILL get better. While you think about your craft and do new things, you can't help but understand it more.
It's devastating for me when I write something that I think sucks. But it's also great when you write something and think ''well, that does sound cool.'' It's not that frequent, and sometimes I change my mind, but it's great.
But also, in a way, I never found it in myself to stop completely. So what am I to do if not power through this fear?
So power through, friend.
You're already good enough and you'll only get better from here.