I took a furniture making class and Dan, the experienced woodworker, who taught the class told me something important when I was struggling with my table. He said "Do you think master woodworkers don't make mistakes? They do, they shim* stuff up. You can't tell when it's done". Another woodworker also told me 'there's no such thing as the right way. there's only smarter, safer, faster" e.g. if you run into a problem, you work around it with a creative solution.

A shim is a small piece of wood, chipped to fit into a joint and glued in place so that the joint is snug.