Thanks for sharing this.

I think the biggest issue for me that you touched on was trust. With my martial arts career I have a teacher and older brothers whom I trust, so I have much more faith that I can get better. With drawing I don't have this. The one time I took an art class (which I do think helped my abilities) I was able to dump a lot more energy into it for that same reason. I also have enough history in kung fu at this point that I can see the progression, i.e. where I needed to work on x, did so, and improved.

Related to this, I think we have a tendency to see art, like math or science, as something people either "get" or they don't. So when I see my kung fu teacher's ability, I know that no one just "gets" kung fu, but I see what's possible through work. I'm slowly reshaping my thoughts on the art front to mirror this.

You're of course totally right about needing to pick one thing and work on it. Part of my frustration, of course, is not even knowing what that one thing actually is, although a lot of that comes back to the trust thing I described above. I do think something more structured would really help me a lot, but I don't really have the time or money to pursue a formal class. The site who shall not be named has an ArtBuddy sub, but that seems more geared towards joint feedback and accountability, and I'm not in a place where I can say more than "that doesn't look right but I can't say why." In other words, I'm not looking for a collaboration, I need someone who will give me feedback exclusively. It occurs to me as I type this that my town has a big and well-regarded art school as part of its larger university, so I wonder if I could find a starving art student who could give me some informal instruction?