taste develops in a similar way.
i have been strangely interested in clothes for as long as i can remember. for toddler me, the criterion was simple. i was into blue, blue, blue, i wanted everything blue. later it became more about fads, consuming brands and reputation, then material, shape, texture, construction, comfort. my taste became more precise along the way as i accumulated things that i could easily reject.
the uneconomical lesson about buying clothes was that trying something on in a store helped, but buying it taught me much more.
once i had paid for something, worn it outside, photographed myself in it, and allowed others to see me in it, the judgement became sharper. i could no longer evaluate the thing abstractly. i had chosen it. there was consequence.
this is how i think many important decisions work.
we imagine that good decisions come from acquiring enough information to eliminate uncertainty before choosing. my experience has been almost the opposite. some information becomes available only after commitment. you choose while still uncertain. you give something else up. you expose the choice to reality. then reality tells you something about yourself that contemplation could not. the best decisions in my life were rarely good because i knew beforehand that they would work. they became good because i chose them, took responsibility for them, and pushed them toward becoming good.
before putting actual effort into something and putting yourself out there, it is hard to even know what your problem is. exposure hurts. you want to protect yourself from being exposed, especially when it is something you care about, and even more when it is toward someone you care about. but if you are not proud of something you actually chose or something you have, maybe it is not fully yours yet. or maybe there is something to improve that you could not have discovered without first making the choice.