EPTThe best way to identify problems will always be to watch replays of yourself. Simply thinking after the game "Well it felt like I did 'x' wrong," can work out sometimes, but leaves open the possibility that you didn't fully understand what was happening that game. The simplest example would probably a hidden base of your opponents. You are worrying about your less than ideal control during the engagements across the match when the actual problem involves scouting. So always check the replay if you aren't 100% sure.
One of the most key points for identifying problems is to always be looking for the biggest problem. Remembering our previous discussion, knowledge gaps are clearly the biggest problem possible for playing starcraft, as it is impossible to make a decision or execute it without that knowledge. So this is what we'll look for first. These can often be obvious. For example, the first time you got cannon rushed. What was the immediate response? First, you ragequit. Then you open up youtube and type in "How to defend a cannon rush PvZ" or something to that effect. Easy. You now have that knowledge. But unfortunately at other times it isn't so obvious. Zergs struggled against the forge fast expand for months because they had not yet learned the correct response to it. It took someone truly just throwing the meta out the window to realize that. Now I'm not saying your should go hunting for giant changes to your play just because of a few losses, but always be looking for areas that you can improve your knowledge. The biggest sign that you're lacking the knowledge that you need is a feeling of confusion during or after the match. You feel lost, and don't know what's happening. If you feel that way, save the replay, write down the problem, and go find the answer when you are done practicing. This kind of mistake must be fixed before any others can be properly addressed.
But maybe it's the case that you know what to do, you just couldn't remember at that moment, even if outside the game it was obvious. GOOD, write that down. This is mistake in our ability to make decisions in game, and is very common against agressive, greedy or just uncommon strategies in game. You'll almost always know this is a problem if when looking at the game after the fact you think to yourself "Oh, I know how to deal that." Thankfully, fixing this mistake is usually very simple, if time consuming. Play more, preferrably with practice partners using the strategies you need to be gaining experience against. This is one of the only areas where you really must play Starcraft 2 to improve, because being able to make a decision in game, with all the distractions of micro and macro, is very different from simply watching and being able to say "Well if I were such-and-such player, I would be doing 'y'."
The final mistakes to watch for are those in execution. You know what to do, you tried to do it, you failed. These will require a much more throrough explanation on how to fix, even if we just scratch the surface as we did with the others, because there are such a vast number of things to do in SC2. But, the identification is still simple, you simply weren't able to do what needed to be doing, from spitting those marines to missing the hold position hotkey and throwing out a hilarious forcefield.
So you know how to tell which of these three areas is causing a problem. Seriously, write that down. Each time. Just a tally for each game. This will tell your where your biggest problem lies. And now that we can find our basic problem, tomorrow we can look for basic solutions.
