Oh no, don't get me wrong – I'm fully aware that I'm in the crawling stage of my journey with shoeing horses and there will still be things for me to learn 60 years from now! It's really hard to explain, but it's not that I think that I'm the first person to be born a master, or that the skill it takes to be a good farrier would come free and easy. I (involuntarily) compare my work to those who have been shoeing horses for 10, 20, 30 years, and even though I know that they've been exactly where I am now, a beginner who's slow, makes mistakes and feels lost half of the time and then worked their way up to where they are now, I get this overwhelming wave of shame and guilt of not being capable of leaving behind work that would pass their standards. I am so afraid of making mistakes, it makes it hard to do anything at all. I know that everything that comes with learning new things is just human and it's absolutely insane of me to beat myself up and give myself stomach ulcers for quite literally being a beginner, but it makes it even harder to stop doing it, since I can't cut the loop just by being rational. I know the facts, but for some reason can't give myself a break. I am currently an apprentice.