When I started taking learning how to draw seriously I started out on @Irshad Karim 's drawabox ( https://drawabox.com/ ). One of the first things he talks about is the 50% rule, where half of drawing time should be devoted to just drawing for the sake of drawing. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I've always had a hard time with that. I've always had the mindset of trying to get as good as fast as I can, and that meant banging out drill after drill, exercise after exercise, lesson after lesson, unyielding through exhaustion. And it's pretty much how I still operate. Both @Stan Prokopenko and @Marshall Vandruff ,however, have talked on the Draftsmen Podcast about the quote that "by definition, you have right now the skills to create your best work." But I recognize very confidently that the best work I could create right now is not anywhere close to what I'd like to be on the page, and I'm the type of person who takes most of the joy out of the success of a nice drawing. The scenes I see in my head all feature things that I have no confident grasp on at all yet (color, composition, and the figure mainly). And so I keep working on those skills trying to rocket up to the skill level where I can put those scenes on paper. But then there's the fundamentals to learn first before all that, and so I gotta go through those first. It's only a matter of time before the end goal is completely lost and I end up slaving away at things for which enjoyment is slowly seeping away. But the drawing for fun can't happen until I know all the skills I need, and so this cycle materializes that simultaneously contradicts itself and perpetuates itself. Thoughts?