What holds people back from improvement is tilt. I am an ex-league player (Yes, I quit), who got to platinum before I decided to quit. I won't go into details, but anyone who's played league of legends with the intention to climb understands tilt. Essentially, tilt is an altered state of mind in which you perform worse than you normally do because of a build up of negativity from "bad teammates". For Osu, it's from "Shit misses".

The astute people will already know where I'm going with this but let me introduce an example. If someone practices something with 100% effort every single time, they will most certainly improve faster than if someone gives 50% effort. It's common sense.

Following this example, when a player is "Grinding PP", they are either cycling through maps (Which is a good idea) or spamming 1 single map back to back (Very, very bad). I'll discuss why cycling through maps is good later, but for now, let's bring the example above down to explain. It's common knowledge that the more someone "Spams" a map, the worse they perform. This is because of tilt. The intent to FC a map, the shaking of your hand, the strain of your wrist, your heartbeat in your chest, you're so close, and then X. You miss one. You're frustrated, you're disappointed, you're angry, you want to try again. You didn't take a break, so you decided to restart ASAP and because you did, you're taking the feelings of failure, anger, and disappointment with you.

When you're tilted, you aren't performing at your best. Unfortunately, most players don't recognize tilt and they continue to play for hours while they're tilted. If you're tilted and you're playing maps you know you can do well on and you end up doing worse because of the tilt, the tilt itself worsens. Depending on the severity of tilt, you're playing at a degraded level of skill that you normally play. This can be translated to 50% effort. If the connection hasn't been made yet, then let me make it crystal clear.

Playing on tilt is the same as half-ass playing Osu and can build bad habits and actually regress skill.

Avoiding tilt is the hardest part of improvement because it's in our human nature to be upset or excited when we fail or succeed. However, avoiding tilt is vital in improvement. The best way to avoid tilt is to adopt the philosophy that I stated above. You do not play for rank, do not play for combo, do not play for accuracy, do not focus on statistics. Feel the music, Feel the rhythm, Commit to song and never stop half way especially if you're new. Playing for fun is undoubtedly giving 100% effort and you will begin to improve if you're able to remove tilt from your playing. That said, I wouldn't say I'm tilt proof, but what's important is that I am aware of tilt, and now you are too.

The moment you feel like you're tilting, the moment you're angry or frustrated that you shitmissed, this is what I would do:
1. Change the map. (I don't know the EXACT reason that this helps, but I would say that by changing the song, the pressure of "Man, I shit missed after a 475 combo, I hope I can reach 475 again." because we all know what that feels like. By changing the song, you're starting fresh and the disappointment of the previous song is left behind. At least, it should.)
2. Take a 1-2 minute breather. Let the disappointment fade. Your spent all your focus on that one map, you don't have an infinite supply. Let yourself calm down and revitalize before you try again. I recommend listening part of a song on youtube or just occupying yourself for a little bit of time. I promise you'll get less tilted or avoid tilt completely with this method.

More insight on this topic that I'd like to give as to why we start to perform worse as we repeatedly play a song is this: When we play a song we know we can FC the pressure is increased than compared to if we play a song that we know we cannot. When we get to a high point of the song and we're close to FC'ing the song and we miss, that specific moment becomes an ANCHOR in our minds. We will replay the song, and in the back of our minds our focus is being divided in two as we think about "not shit missing the same part of the song" and as a result, shit miss in an earlier part of the song because of our diverted attention. From there, the cycle continues and gets worse. Avoid this situation by referring to the above.

No, not the mod Autopilot.

I believe there are 2 kinds of playing. Autopilot and Focused. As I played Osu's and reflected on what it means to be "good", I began to see that there were 2 different kinds of play that were somewhat related to each other. It is hard to explain these concepts but I will try my best. Autopilot is a reactionary kind of playing where a player sees a circle and simply reacts, allowing muscle memory to dictate the movement. Focused is the kind of play that every single person who ever played Osu played at when they first began. The conscious effort to see the circle, analyze the approach rate, then react to the approach circle. I believe that these 2 play styles are another large reason why players aren't improving.

The important part of Autopilot playing is that it forms bad habits. As I played those maps with crazy jumps, I found myself not even thinking as I went and hit those jumps. Of course, it's a good feeling to hit crazy jumps and find that it was effortless. Your mentality becomes used to that kind of playing, a reactionary, thoughtless flick of the wrist and tap. This kind of playing is prevalent on very fast based jump maps. I believe anyone who reads this can attest to that kind of feeling of playing Osu thoughtlessly.

But remember, the keyword is muscle memory. To play on autopilot, you have to first get to a good enough skill level where you have developed muscle memory in the first place. Once you begin to play on autopilot, you cease to play with a Focused play style.

Let us say that you are able to play 5* songs. You got good enough to the point where you can play them decently, but you've hit a wall and no matter what song you play or how much you play, you just can't improve or you're improving very slowly. Why is that? More likely than not, you're playing on Autopilot. It may not be clear exactly what I mean still to some of you, but let's put it this way. When you play a jump map, mind you, the most difficult one you're able to play, are you focusing on EVERY SINGLE JUMP (Your eyes follow every single one and look directly at every single circle or do you just mindlessly, reaction-based, flick your cursor to each jump without even noticing/timing the approach circle without much thought?

It sounds crazy right? To be able to focus and time every single approach circle when the circles are popping up all over the screen and very quickly one after the other and at AR 9 or AR 10 for some of you. But that in itself is Focused playing. For a lot of you, doing what I just described is going to be very hard, for some of you, you already might be doing that. Those of you that say, that's impossible, the jumps are too fast, are the ones that have an Autopilot dominated play style and are the ones that are stuck at their current level of playing. Most common among these kinds of players is that when they play slower maps, they are EXTREMELY inaccurate and cannot play them accurately even though they can play much higher difficulty, faster maps. If you are this kind of player, then this is the remedy to fix it.

To break it down simply:
Autopilot - Muscle memory, reaction based, thoughtless.
Focused - Analytically, timing, conscious effort.

As you play on Autopilot at a decent level, the moment you step into higher level maps, if you're relying on reaction alone and you aren't timing it then you're inaccurate and you're subconsciously learning how to play based on reaction, not rhythm. You are therefore building bad habits that will come back to bite you. I can attest to this completely.

However, if you play with a Focused play style, you will begin to find that 'fast' becomes 'slow'. Your timing improves significantly because as you stare at each circle and time each approach circle, you're training not just your accuracy, but your reaction since you have to time it correctly. If you drop the reactionary play style and begin to hone your focus, you will undoubtedly improve and find that you will begin to be able to play faster and faster maps with more accuracy.

Another interesting thing as that as your Focused play style improves, so to does your Autopilot play style. But as your Autopilot play style improves, your Focused does not. This is important because the only true way to improve is by playing with a Focused play style.

Assuming you read above, this will be quick.

What do you learn when playing on Autopilot?

You learn how to simply react. As you play harder and harder maps, your habits get worse. You begin to rely on speed and that is why people with Autopilot dominated play styles cannot play slower maps or are stuck at their current level. Whether you realize it or not, you aren't training to get better even though you can play hard maps. You can play 5* songs or 6* songs, but you can't play them well. You also can't play 4* songs accurately even though they are literally easier than 5* and 6* stars.

By playing with a Focused play style, you are training yourself to rely on the approach circle. You are training yourself not just to react, but to see, analyze, and then react. You are training your mind to 'see' the approach circles and over time, you will build the habit of tapping only when the approach circle reaches the circle. Amazingly, your muscle memory improves and then adapts to the fact that you are focusing on the approach circle and you can actually Autopilot accurately (But only up to the point of your current skill level, not beyond it.) To improve, you must constantly always be playing with a Focused play style.