Hi epanzion!
So, when I was around 20 kyu, one of the things that repeatedly confused me was how easily my opponents managed to grab a 30-50 point lead - usually within the first 60-80 moves of the game. No matter how well I felt I was doing in my local battles - I kept losing the global conflict.
It took me a long time to realize that there were underlying whole-board dynamics that were shaping these games, and by being ignorant of them, I was continuously giving that advantage away to my opponent.
In order to get over this hump, it’s not enough to get more skilled in the local fighting you’re doing now - you have to grow a completely new set of eyes so that you can see new dangers and opportunities you were missing before, and then develop a new set of skills (learning when to invade early, handling weak groups, using direction of play to your advantage) to handle those risks / opportunities
I’ve been working on a 19x19 FOR BEGINNERS series here on OGS for a while. I think these 2 articles might help you see all this in a different light
It’s a lot of reading so take your time. I’ve also included several demo boards in the 2nd article that you can open in a different browser window and play through move-by-move as you read my commentary and look at my images.
Hopefully, these will help you see the ways in which you will need to zoom out from the local exchanges and learn to see the underlying large-scale forces which affect the whole-board game
Good luck