Firstly let me prefix all this by saying, I'm not an experienced player, in fact, I still havent cleared by initial bankroll and at one point wondered if I ever would.
Anyway, I wanted to share some thoughts with those that are like me, just starting out and maybe not as successful as you expected or wanted to be.
1) Follow the charts, they are boring as hell but its just like learning to read, you have to know your letters before you can read the encyclopedia.
They are intentionally very very safe and designed to give you experience without getting you hurt. This will change as you get more experienced.
2) The PS people harp on it, but it is really worth mentioning, Bankroll Management.
These rules are there to protect you even more than the tightness of the charts.
Even though it sucks mightly to have to go down the limits or even to get stuck playing $0.02/$0.04, its the cheapest way for you to get the experience you need and believe me it will inspire you to follow the charts and read all the articles and watch all the videos you can get your hands on.
If you ignore them you are sure to fail eventually, I know I almost did.
3) Perhaps the best advice that you may not have seen as it not apparent from the articles and other learning materials is this.
Get yourself a tiltblocker either something like the one Terrorblade uses or simply use something like PokerTracker and drag the stats over your bankroll so you cant see it (If you do this you will also need to use the "auto top-up" feature of your poker client).
I used to obsess about how much money I had made or loss at a particular table and it used to Tilt me like crazy. Ok, sometimes it would make me more determined to follow the "PS rules" more closely which was a good thing but it used to also make me play longer session and call down to showdowns much more than I should have been.
