Process and Outcome
So. After labouring for many hours, toiling away, you've created a thing. Be it some funky new maths you find interesting, artwork (arguably maths is art), a music piece you've just practised to death. Naturally you're quite satisfied with the end result, as you should be!
But after a while, that feeling of satisfaction - what we initially thought was a masterpiece turns out to be just average.
Or is it? I can assure you it's not. If you are at the stage where you can critique your work, then you're already leagues ahead of others. Nowadays on the internet everything is about the end result rather than the process1.
As difficult as it may be to change such a mentality, if you fall in love with the process then the results will come naturally. Quite the cheesy line, I know.
The main reason I post about this is I tend to fixate on the outcome, i.e. I spend too long on planning out the "perfect" learning itinerary when in fact trial and error (getting your hands dirty) is the best teacher our there.
I've started embracing this mentality, without me realising it a while back, and for example it led me to willingly do daily sightreading practise. Lo and behold I've improved at this skill2!