Lots of great advice here and all of it valid. Each person is different and our history is different, natural skills vary and all that stuff. It's up to you to look at all this feedback and decide which really matches where you're at and how you feel.

My perspective comes from have played guitar since 1981. Many have seen me post my history a bit but by the late 80's I was playing speedy shredder stuff (no sweeping though...wasn't my bag enough to invest in the skill). I was in a couple of 'shredder' competitions and did ok, but enough to have been selected to even participate over a lot of other folks that submitted to be in the competition.

What does that mean? Not a single darned thing. Nothing. Nada. Sure, it's nice to know that someone thought I could play but it brought me no real actual joy beyond 'hey, cool, I guess I'm ok.'. But it was not really the fun of playing like playing actual music.

The point here is to not get too worried about how good you are. Sure, it's natural and we all want to progress but ultimately, it's playing music. Like Sno said, enjoy the journey. Enjoy the music.

Does that answer your question? Nope.

For me, I started with the ability to kinda play naturally. I didn't much struggle like many did. It wasn't like magic but mostly I started kinda loose. I didn't stare at the instrument intimidated and with each mistake, worried and tensing up with frustration. About year five (1986), my playing jumped leaps and bounds. But the coincided with a few good players around me and a little more knowledge of the fretboard. Magical! Ha!

That 'looseness' is part of my skill and my secret to getting better. I use that to play bass, drums and even a little mandolin.

When I read your post, it sounds very disciplined and that's not at all a bad thing. Honestly, I would have been a better guitar player faster than five years had I had any discipline.

But there is a point to my 'lack if discipline'. You're tracking your ability like it's on a project board (in a way I suppose). You're measuring progress which is not bad. However, you may be boxing yourself in too much.

My suggestion?

Start spending a lot of time learning songs you love. A lot of time. You've been playing for three years and still working on 'made easy' songs. My first two songs I (mostly, sorta) learned within my first year of playing were Rush-Fly by Night and Led Zep-Black Dog (which to this day, I still have to pay attention when I play...). They were way above my ability but I was too ignorant to know better. So I learned them.

Start digging in to songs. The greatest guitar players spent a lot of time playing and learning songs. Your skill will jump leaps and bounds. You start to learn not just the theory or skill but how things are applied and the various things that make up song and musical vocabulary.

Doing so may try your patience a little but therein lies the point of what I said above; I kinda didn't care if I messed up. To be clear, I did care enough to keep on practicing something that I couldn't get down right away. I just didn't get frustrated about it. Fly by Night came pretty quickly because it's largely familiar chords with a little work on the descending riff. Black Dog took time. Still does. But because I don't see making a mistake as a bad thing, I just keep on messing about until it pops.

So > songs.