I am a relatively new DM (started playing D&D back in June 2025 as an online DM for some friends) and I started my first in-person campaign with my family a few months ago. None have really played D&D before but they are always super excited to play and seem to enjoy it. We started with a small one-shot and I've been trying to make it into a longer campaign at their request.
The problem is, every time I run a session I only get incredibly discouraged with my own lack of skills as a DM. My dungeons are boring, my descriptions are bland, and my roleplaying is pretty laughable. I try to give myself the grace to be bad and improve, but it's hard when every single session has players standing up and walking around the room during other people's turns in combat. At the end of every session, my players thank me for running and say I did great, but I know even from past online campaigns that I can and should be doing far better.
I keep delaying and cancelling my own sessions because I have been building up for big lore revelations (which are supposed to be the campaign's main hook) without really knowing what they are, and thinking about prep makes me feel very overwhelmed. I have virtually no concrete worldbuilding or campaign structure prepared, and I spend most of my time between sessions dreading the next game instead of prepping. Watching actual plays or reading through D&D books used to make me excited to run, but they just make me feel like an even worse DM by comparison now...
Sorry if it's a silly question but, how do I stop being discouraged by my sessions and actually improve?