I was thinking to myself how I was doing everything wrong and how I'll never become a speedrunning pro and shit like that and I started crying. I'm fine now, a little mentally exhausted, but fine nonetheless.

No one does a good run in it's first try! Look at my obsolete NewerDS run, 1:40 while it can easily be sub 35 with a bit of grinding, first runs are never good! Just never look at your time at the beginning, just keep doing runs and you'll automatically get better in every run. Resetting and looking at the time is what made me demotivated at times because I felt like all my runs are bad, although it's just because these were my first few runs.

Don't worry about becoming a "pro" or getting world records and stuff like that, doing that when you're just starting out is gonna burn you out really fast. Just practice and focus on getting more consistent and improving on your time. Once you're playing more consistently and its easier for you to get runs on really good pace (which could take a very long time depending on the game), then you can worry about going for top times.

Should be playing a game you already enjoy. Don't start playing a game to try and be the best, just play to enjoy, that's what it's all really about.

Sure, I suppose we all get times where we get mad at games, but that's just life. Enjoy the game you play, and don't overdo it.

People do that semi-often due to feeling that they’re not good enough.

[quote] I was thinking to myself how I was doing everything wrong and how I'll never become a speedrunning pro and shit like that and I started crying. I'm fine now, a little mentally exhausted, but fine nonetheless. [/quote]

It happens, personnaly though, i think that might be because you take speedrunning too seriously. It's nice to have a good time, but if you don't have fun while playing, then what's the point ?

Also, it's normal to do mistakes, especially when learning a game you've never played casually. Plus, for some games, people who have WR are people who played the game (or other games of the same serie) for a long time (when you think about it, it's just like practicing, except they were just aiming for fun, not for optimized strats).

Anyway, i suggest you just relax for some time and play games you enjoy (or just try new games, casual-style, as long as you don't put any pressure on yourself it's fine imo).

Life is like that. It takes hours of practice and dedication. Anything worth doing is never easy. Don't get down on yourself. Take breaks and just try do a little better each time. If it looks like you messed up to much reset and start again. You can do it. But it will take time. Kind of like playing Dark Souls for the first time. And watch how the pros do it. Remember when you speed run you are playing against yourself. Trying to be better than you were a couple of weeks or months ago. Hope this helps.

but of course! if you overwork yourself in something you will hit a wall. it is important to remember not every obstacle can simply be climbed over. we must find other ways to deal with the problem and learn things as we go along. challenges aren't paths you walk across. paths are windy and curved with many breaks and dead ends. knows when to stop and think for a moment is important.

If anyone can do the thing, then you can do the thing; it just might take a little more time and effort than you first thought.

You're either going to speedrun a game you love or find a quality in a game that you love no matter how ridiculous the game or category. Most runners come to a point where they acknowledge that speedrunning and the community is a wonderful thing ~ even the best thing that's come into their life - but not worth destroying your mental health / personal life over but this can be avoided with shifting some bad thoughts/perspectives into healthy ones and setting some boundaries. The "pros/wr holders" are often people who whether continuously or at one point loved the game with a passion that fueled their progress immensely to where they compete on record pace out of love for the game or out of good habits set / muscle memory after such a long period of time grinding. Some games have higher walls to climb then others and its up to you to figure out how to scale the wall, you go to fast without setting safety points it will feel like you burnt out and fall to the bottom but with safety checkpoints you can hang onto that progress once you have successfully reached it and feel much better, basically practicing sections one step at a time and practicing difficult tricks one at a time. After running as many games as I have now at this point I can easily say a game you should decide to speedrun on the more serious side or rather with more dedication should be the type of game where you are playing, feeling challenged/excited/joyful and have reset anywhere from 10-50+ times while maintaining the same smile and inner fire of determination to get the run that you desire, if this feeling is dashed exceptionally soon, you really shouldn't be running this game or speedrunning at all for that matter, the right game alone can be the difference between ever getting the euphoric feeling of a satisfying run versus raging over a game/category that you probably shouldn't be wasting your time on in the first place which can relate to the breakdown that you experienced. If you truly value becoming a speedrunning pro you need to figure out what speedrunning really means to you and work from there but whether focusing on one - a few games or being a variety speedrunner, the path will never be easy.