in regards to bettering yourself as a player i think my favorite saying of all time when it comes to music is "to really know and feel what you play you have to learn everything you can about music, and then forget it all and just play"
too often when i record or write i try my best to make it sound good and make sure i do everything right and to the tee but the times where i play my best are when i just let all of that go and simply let it out. music is a language, so you need to learn to just speak it without thinking to hard about it or else your words will get jumbled up.