And you know (and if you'd seen me play, you know I'm a novice), sort of like golf, to me so much of playing guitar is a mental thing. Aside from the knowledge of where to physically place your fingers, which there is no way around, things like speed and timing and technique are really pretty mental. If you tell yourself you can do it, you pretty much can. You might have to try several times, but with repetition it can be done. And that pretty much goes for both hands.
I, myself struggle with "Travis picking", but I only struggle with it because I'm so locked into the patterns I've used for over 40 years......my fingers are trained. But there's a mental block there, where my fingers fight doing something different........it's a muscle memory thing. I wish I had learned with alternating bass as with Travis picking. But speed with the fret hand is also mental. I think we get locked into fretting at pretty much the same speed, but with practice and an open mind, we can speed that up too, or even vary speeds. Technique as well. I know sometimes I'm guilty of almost trying to mash the strings through the fretboard, but with a lighter touch comes speed. The trick is to hold strings securely with a light touch, and again, that just takes practice.
West