It takes a beginner significantly more energy to enjoy an activity, but once you are proficient in the basics (like keyboard playing for improvisation) the mental barrier is much lower, and you are more likely to just jump into it and enjoy yourself.
My father liked badminton, but was never good, and rarely played. Then, at some point in his busy life, he scheduled a lesson once a week, for two months.
It made such a dramatic change; he started to play weekly, even after the lesson ended, and each time with rejoicing and cheerfulness.
I've seen the same pattern on myself and my friends as well, in both arts and sports. So, I'd say if you think there's something you might enjoy doing often, schedule some time to study it (again, doesn't have to be long). Get better and get happier.
My biggest problem is either not being able to tell if I have actually made any progress, or have made too little progress over too long a period of time. It seems to be accepted that if you put in a lot of effort then you'll get better, but they never mention how much better. I don't see the point in getting to point X in 10 years when being smarter about my resources would have gotten me to point X in 3 years, if getting there faster means getting to the point where I actually start enjoying it faster. Time is precious and non-renewable. Some forms of practice are simply better than others, and I believe that I can't always figure them out entirely alone.
If you have played a couple sports well, then it's easy to pickup more.
If you can play a musical instrument well, it's easer to translate the learning to others.
If you can cook one cuisine well, then it's easier to start cooking others, as the fundamentals are there.
That said, I agree with you, if you want to pickup something that you feel you don't have a talent for, then you need to hire a good coach and take lessons. And yes, the initial hump is frustrating, most people give up, but if you can push yourself over it, you'll begin to enjoy it.
Result was that I stopped those activities soon, because they were draining. Meanwhile, people who just unseriously dabbled in them, tender to learn and get habits. They were not drained by them and had fun.
I just find that I cannot enjoy something if I have too much doubts. I may enjoy doing it once or twice, but if I'm constantly caught in failure/exhaustion, it's no longer fun.
I used to be into composing and improvisation, but each time I attempt at it, the result was to "meh". I walked the keyboard but knew nowhere to go. The fun was basically an initial passion plus a little curiosity, which in me, tends to die quickly if no fuel is supplied.
Meanwhile, my friend who actually studied Jazz, can sit in front of a piano and just play, fully enjoying every second of it, while entertaining everyone else. Comparing with my randomly walking on the keyboard, it's a higher level of fun as he attempts to weave the harmonies and melodies, and it's more lasting and more complex.
Again, it's a quite personal thing, as I also have a friend who literally doesn't do anything new. He neither dabbles nor learn seriously; has no hobbies apart from having dinner with friends; but still, he seems to be really happy.
And that change of expectations made difference in long term - in two years span I improved much more on things I had low expectations at and kept fun and thus kept doing bit by bit.
Let people relax. Stop appropriating every good thing and turning it into another competition.
This reminds me of a lovely article I've read recently: an app can be a home-cooked meal. In other words, you can create small scale, short-lived things for private consumption. It's a lot more relaxing.
I second a recommendation to that article: https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/
When I’m out of my writing habit, sitting down and getting something out is a huge chore. My brain constantly wants to pick up my phone, check my email, read the news, etc. But once I’ve spent a few days limiting that impulse, I feel like the chains are off and I’m able to just sit down and write.
Last year I participated in Nanowrimo, and it was insane how quickly the words came after the first five days. I highly recommend it to anyone who has felt similar friction in their creative practice.
> Q. How to actually get stuff done?
> A. Give yourself permission to produce shit.
This should be shown in a poster in my room!
There is one musician on YT who said that he is simply doodling away on his groovebox frequently and that more than 90 percent of the results are shitty. But from those ideas that are somewhat decent he develops his music.
I'm not against these. After all, it's why most folks get into whatever they are doing. We all need to keep a roof over our heads, and food on the table. We also want to feel good about what we do. It's just not why I do what I do.
I do what I do, directly as a love of the craft, and all my work is an act of creation.
I get up early every morning, and walk a couple of miles. It's usually dark, when I do, and I use the time to sort through what I'll be doing that day. A lot of that "sorting" is a moral and motivational inventory. I figure out what I want to do, and also why I want to do it. If I can't come up with a compelling why, then I have to reconsider the what.
I do enjoy writing. I've done a lot of it[0], and will do more. I don't have a schedule for writing prose. I tend to churn something out once a month or so, but I will sometimes do a couple of articles in fairly quick succession.
I do them for myself. It's nice if people read them, but they really help me to clarify what and why I do, as well as how. Like everything else I do, I apply a lot of polish and refinement; even if I am the only person that will ever read it. One of my habits, is that everything I do, I do as "ship." When even my casual throwaway experiments consist of a level of quality not seen in many large-scale industrial apps, then the stuff I'm serious about, is likely to be fairly robust.
The one daily thing that I like to do, is write code every day. Not just LeetCode (in fact, I never practice that stuff). I like to write "keeper" code, every day, 366 days a year. Of course, I'm not able to actually get that done every day, but I get most days done. My GH Activity Graph is pretty much solid green[1].
I've been at this game a while, and a lot of what I do is almost "instinctual." Basically, "muscle memory." When I'm working on a a project, I don't whip out my GoF Design Patterns book, and figure out which of the Basic Patterns I'll be using, or my copy of Rapid Development, to set out a project plan; I just start writing an OBSERVER or ADAPTER, without bothering to call it that. In fact, the only reason that I tend to use industry jargon, is when I'm trying to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for maintainers. Otherwise, I often make up my own terminology.
I'm a bit "on the spectrum," and tend to live in my own world. It can be a massively productive world, but is insular.
When I write -especially about how I do stuff, it often forces me to get out of "muscle memory," and into the same world everyone else lives in. I have to explain what I do to an audience that is larger than just myself.
So, it's great if people like what I write, but it really doesn't matter that much (at, least, to me).
I have to say though that simply doodling on a Synth and enjoying the sounds, playing an instrument without trying to make a song, can be very relaxing and satisfying. Especially when you are a beginner at it. Otherwise you might be trying too hard to create something meaningful, destroying the pleasure in the process.
So my advice would be not to attempt to create, but to simply indulge in the act and enjoy the flow.