Ah jeez, where do I start?
Get the animator's survival kit. Or at least see a couple of pages on the internet just to get some general ideas. It really changes everything you see about animation and makes you better from the first read.
You're too impatient and get discouraged? Welp, what you need is discipline. Animation is all about discipline, you either get it, or you get yourself a better career. Don't worry, it's easy, here's one of the many ways to do it: Ever heard of the "don't break the chain" calendar? You can make your own.
As for discouragement. Fuck that, dude, fail until you get it right. Don't worry.
As for guidelines... Just do a layer for doodles and mute it when you're done with it. Doing an animatic helps. Look up animatics, they're the best way to get anatomy and timing before doing final animations. The rest... well, youtube is your friend. I had a favourite flash guide video, but I can't find it. If you're doing a 100% frame by frame, 1 layer per character is fine, but not more than 3. If you want to tween animate, I can't help ya there, buddy, youtube is your friend again.
Now let's look at your animation... Oh dang, that's rough. Don't worry! We can fix it.
I'd really advice you to look up some anatomy guides and practice, even stick figures have anatomy.
Now, it doesn't have any timing, it's confusing and it doesn't really make any sense. I'd suggest to look your favourite animated fight scenes frame by frame, and "inspire" your animations on them untill you feel like you can make your own timings. By that I don't mean trace frame by frame, but just get the idea. It's kinda stealing, after all. Hell, look up xiaoxiao stick figure fights for starters.
Now there's a really bad move you made on your animation, the worst of all: To be continued. Dude, discipline is all. No matter how much you learn, how much you improve, if you can't finish what you start, you'll never be a good animator. It's okay to drop a project, however, you must learn to finish things. Dropping a project must be a rare event to you.
So I hope this is useful to you.
