The more you solder, the better you get at it. It really does pay to practice soldering on spare or old components. My first post-uni job was a few months modifying populated circuit boards, so I got paid to learn to solder pretty well.

But poor close-up eyesight doesn't help. I desperately need new close-up glasses as the focus of my current ones is now too far away so I have to solder at 40cm away, not a more ideal (for me) 15cm. I've tried a pair of adjustable focus glasses, but they are terrible. The in-focus field width is so small and the depth of focus is so tiny that they are headache-inducing and only to be used for short periods when I'm in direst need.