How to improve at any skill
Sometimes we might feel inadequate by being unable to perform something which requires some learned skill. Say, for example, I dread parallel parking (funnily enough, not a hypothetical).
A possible response to inadequacy or a challenge way below one's skill level is avoidance.
This, of course, can work out for some things, in some sense, for some time.
Still, avoiding everything one might be bad at doing -- thus perpetuating being bad at it, since you don't get any practice -- is also a very self-limiting way to live.
How could I go about being better at it?
Reps
The essential unit of any performance-based skill is simply repetition, or reps.
Start your performance and see it through to the end as best as you can manage. This can be called the execution.
Afterwards, reflect upon what went well, what could have gone better and what you plan to do differently next time. This can be called reflection.
Then, finally, go back to step 1, execution, repeating your performance from the start, but paying attention to not fall into old habits and doing the changes you've decided upon.
Creating a practice environment
It makes no difference for the skill of walking a tightrope whether that rope is one meter or ten meters off the ground. Thus, mastering the skill can be as simple as practicing in the first, simpler, safer environment, to only then bring it to the higher stakes environment.
Going back to parallel parking, I could go about it by first practicing in calm local roads, maybe with cones instead of cars.
In principle, the same skill would transfer if I then tried to do parallel parking at a busy street.
Of course, the practice environment does not perfectly prepare oneself for the real scenario, as there's another skill to be developed -- keeping yourself cool under pressure from other drivers.
However, practicing on a simpler, safer context provides a “middle” step that allows you to focus on a part of the skillset necessary to master the full performance.
Reflection and delayed feedback
I can't stress enough how feedback must come after the performance.
Say you are trying to improve your grammar and spelling: writing into Word with grammar corrections turned on won't make you any better at writing.
For the skill to be stretched, you must let go of immediate corrective feedback -- or external corrections during the performance. Do your best then with the information and skills that you have available, to only afterwards check how you did.
Having corrective feedback during your performance only leads you to grow dependent on always having it available.
Reflecting after you did your best -- and maybe failed or come short -- is truly the greatest tool to realise your own shortcomings and face the ways in which you have to improve, if that's the goal.