When I first started quilting I thought gee, this will be easy peasy, wrong!! Mastering the the 1/4 inch seam and scant 1/4 inch seam, perfecting my cutting, perfecting my pressing and taking the time to enjoy the process has helped a lot. I am a methodical quilter, I tend to do one block at a time and square up each block as I go so that at the end everything should fit perfectly, I can also fix any mistakes. I found that I became disenchanted when I had to go back and redo blocks or try to figure out where I went wrong while piecing, I was less likely to finish the project.
Since fabric is so expensive, I decided to start simple and work my way up, everyone is different, I have seen first time quilters that produce quilts that I would never dream of making and leave me in awe of their abilities. Like most things in life, the more we do something the easier it becomes, enjoy the process and don't be hard on yourself, have fun!!