My only real frustration, 3 years on now, is staying completely relaxed behind the drums.
Learning meditation techniques, and self hypnotizing techniques are wonderful for practicing relaxation. Is it performance anxiety or something else?
Doing many very deep deep breaths right before picking up the sticks helps. Fill those lungs all the way up with air at least 20 times, then pick up the sticks. It's time well spent.
Not performance anxiety...more of a hypertension thing. I think it's just excitement. The *longer* I play the more I settle in and loosen up.
Also, try detaching a little. Charlie Chaplin (as a director) would give the actors the scene, what he wanted them to convey, then right before the camera rolled, he was known to have said, "Now do it poorly"
I had to learn to detach a little, I would "get into it" too much for my own good. Now, the more I'm not excited, the better I can tolerate the playback. Detach. Like the song is no big deal. Don't play emotional, try playing non emotional. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but it helped my playing a great deal.
I just started around 2 months ago, so quite a few things are frustrating as hell.
I'm still just playing what I can on my own, so I'm not up and up on the terminology yet
(half of what's said here makes no sense to me) , but I'm having the worst time training myself on the kick. Much of what I try goes decently, I just can't not hit the high-hat and the bass simultaneously on many more complex beats.
Keeping time with the high-hat and finding time to play when the neighbors won't shoot me are rough spots as well.