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TheRealBarbossa Your thought processes are very familiar to me. I am a perfectionist so everything I do, I feel has to be done perfectly. And yes, this causes stress to the point, I often won't pick up anything I dearly want to do.
This may sound like I'm not being compassionate but try and believe me when I say this is compassion and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. It is what I had to do in order to get past these thought processes that held me back and caused me stress. First, when a negative thought comes forward when you try to do something, a hobby or anything really, ask yourself where is it coming from, what is the root. For me, cleaning house, the root was the negativity I heard when I was a child and did my chores and my father criticized everything. You then need to break it down to today. Does this matter today? What matters? My father isn't here so I don't have to please him anymore, all I need to do is please myself and his opinion doesn't matter.
My perfectionism came from here so now what I decided is I wanted to learn to find joy in imperfections. So I took something I wanted to do and I let those imperfections alone. If I colored a page, and I went outside of the lines and heard 'well, crap now I ruined it because I went outside the lines'. I told myself, "wait, but what if I let it go and I continued coloring, mixing it with another color, blend it and see what happens?" So I did and I went on and continued and yes, sometimes it wasn't great but I told myself, 'but wait I'm learning, next time maybe it will be better'. So I continued and sometimes I just watch a color along on Youtube and I try and copy what they did. I found I'm very good at that and it reduces the stress I get when I try to do it on my own. So that is what I do, and eventually, I will get to the point that I will want to do a page on my own.
I believe the hobby you need to take up is in showing your brain, your mind, that you are better than it thinks you are. That you can learn and you can feel good about what you do even if it isn't perfect. But YOU have to decide to do this. And you have to determine what method works best for you, otherwise, you will never enjoy anything. Don't cave into those negative thoughts, tell them you don't want them anymore, they don't belong and to go away. And if they start to point out something that isn't done the way they think it should be, turn it around and look for something you do like. Find that thing, no matter how small because if you find enough of them, they will grow and those negative thoughts will find it difficult to surface.
If your brain tells you 'I can do better than this." Then either do so, or and this is what I would do, tell it "shut up, this is how I choose to do it now, so leave me alone." Sometimes all it takes is this. Be your own boss and don't let your brain tell you otherwise. You are your own master and if you cave into these thoughts and let them rule you, then you are choosing to be this person.
I've been here. I started with one small thing and slowly worked my way into larger things. I haven't silenced all the negative thoughts, they still come back to haunt me, I sometimes forget and let them rule me. When I remember, I ask myself 'what are you doing? You let yourself slip." And so I work on getting back on track.
After saying all this, if I'm way off track, I apologize but if I'm on track, please give it a try. Don't let anything especially your mind deceive you into believing you can't do something or aren't good enough, because you are awesome and wonderful.
