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@Slatewear I hear you loud and clear, and I know exactly what you’re saying and where you’re coming from. The reason I say that is because I felt the same way. I felt like a deer in headlights for the longest time. I felt that others were running hoops around me where miles and miles ahead of me and money had started at the same general time that I had.
But here’s what I learned. There were many times that I would never be able to learn the guitar. I decided several things it wasn’t all at once either I decided I was going to trust the process and do the best that I could with the lessons. I did the daily challenges, but I think my main focus shifted a little bit and went more towards the skills courses. I didn’t feel as threatened by the comments that I would read and some of the feeds after a lesson. I put myself out there to others that didn’t know how to play and started asking their opinions and questions and how they got to where they were at what types of things they did. So many people really help me out, but I still felt frustrated I still felt I was behind. But that was me that wasn’t them it wasn’t something that they were doing right now I was doing wrong it was me projecting that they were better than me me projecting that no one was as bad as me or no one was as slow as a learner as me
I agree with @jumpinjeff to hang in there, but you do have to still have fun you can’t just keep being frustrated and feeling unable to Play the guitar because that’s why you’re here.
So my suggestions are:
1. don’t compare yourself out. Why did you want to learn the guitar in the first place? Remind yourself why put a big sign up somewhere put things around that make you remember why.
2. Take a step back do some skills lesson lessons my suggestion would be start with the jumpstart to finger style and flat packing and then the strumming course
3. In the old TAC, there was an add-on that you could purchase called the song vault. Tony tight lessons at the beginner intermediate advanced levels and they were mainly bluegrass songs but it allowed players to practice their skills what they learned in lessons, and to play songs. When Tony Ree fabricated Tony’s acoustic challenge, he and the crew decided that that they wanted to go back to basics, Focus on the foundational skills, and he wanted to Focus more on the aging baby boomers, so there were many things that were not transitioned into the new program. But the song vault he put out on a public site so that the people that had paid for it could still access it. Since then it’s been shared very openly with players like you new players and people that hadn’t been involved with that initially. Here is the site check it out you may find that you enjoy trying to play some songs Tony takes you step-by-step you know section by section and just with the easy ones. https://hub-lkx8655w8n.membership.io/
4. Just trust the system. Here’s an easy way to think of the 10 minutes per day and that the concept is right on the money. If you practice for 10 minutes and someone new comes in the door as a new member you have 10 more minutes skills than they do, and that means that you can help them get started Learning what you’ve already learned or practiced if you play 10 minutes per day seven days a week that’s 70 minutes over an hour and you will be 70 minutes more proficient then you were seven days prior to that the program is set up to where you will see the lessons again at some point and trust me you will remember how you were the first time and what you struggled with and I think you’ll probably be surprised that you’ve gotten better that things come easier to you the second time through, so that’s a testament that you are progressing. It’s funny I heard Tommy Emmanuel say one time that nothing comes easy to him that he has to put in practice he has to break down songs into little pieces and it may be focusing just on two or 3 quarts in their progression you know in a row and working it back-and-forth back-and-forth back-and-forth and then moving on to the next thing he doesn’t just put everything together right away it’s the same process that we’re going through that he has to go through and I found that very humbling when I heard him say that, because I consider him one of the greatest acoustic fingerstyle players.
5. I nearly quit guitar at the end of my second year of trying to play and it wasn’t but a short period after that then all of a sudden things started to click into place. Cell the biggest nugget that I can pass on to anybody is don’t quit before the magic happens or the miracle happens or whatever it is or how it happens for you.
Good luck