I was raised in a curious family. Not curious weird but curious as in how does it work. I was also raised in a family that did not take a dollar for granted. My father and brother always took things apart and tried to fix them. Home improvements were done in house, not contracted out for the most part. My father was in the auto industry ever since i can remember and long before that. He worked in nearly every dealer in Miami as body shop managers and mechanical shop managers. Owns his own shop for quite a while as well.
I never got a lot of hands on training as a kid (to young) but I watched and paid attention. When I moved out on my own, I guess that always stayed with me. If something broke, I took it apart to see what was inside. Sometimes I fixed it, others times I called and above mentioned Shaman an paid them to fix it.
I gain a little more confidence in my ability each time i push the envelope. My wife's E300D had a bad glow plug. Only way to get to it is to pull the Intake manifold. Never done that and when I looked un the hood it looked scary. Did some searches and found a step by step, asked some questions here and figured the worst that can happen is I blow up the car and have to buy a new one so what the hell right? Took me a day but the plug came out smooth (only replaced one as I did not want to push my luck) and put everything back together. Car runs, wife is happy and the earth continued to spin on it's axis. The Mash house hold was once again at one with the MB world. I will be replacing my rear lower control arm bushings on the 21st of Nov at a tech session. Never did that but it looks simple enough (famous last words before all hell breaks loose) so we will see what happens.
I think you need to be curious, you need to know what questions to ask and be able to identify what your limits are. Organization in some manner helps (at least me) so that I know what goes back where and I don't end up with left over parts like when I was building models as a kid. Never a good thing when you are working on brakes and you see a bolt laying on the floor when you think you are all done. OOpps
I need good directions and pictures. When i was doing the glow plug repair, I had my digital camera and took lots of pictures so I know how things went back together in case I something did not work out.
I treat my house repairs and remodeling the same way. Never laid tile before but I saw people do it and I read up on it. Did not sound to hard so I laid 800 sq ft of slate. Came out damn good. I get compliments on it all the time. I ripped out my dbl vanity in the bathroom, ripped the wall down to studs, redid the pluming and installed 2 pedestal sinks, split the light out let in two for two lights, added two GFI's, dry walled it, and texture coated it with knock down. Never did any of that before. Brother in law helped quite a bit with the dry wall but i did the rest of the work.
As mentioned above, most of the work is not hard once you have done it. Just looks/sounds scary to the person who has never done it.
I know for me, I look at my car or the things I have done on the house and I am proud of it. I can look at it and say I did it. I saved a butt load of money but whats more, I have a sense of satisfaction that I did it and a part of me will always be with this house (that slate floor is not ever coming up, at least not with out one hell of a fight) and that means a great deal to me. I almost have an emotional attachment. My wife wants to move at some point and she wants me to sell my car due to the maint costs. As for the house I know we will move eventually but it will be hard because of the work I have done. Don;t want to give it up. Same for the car. My Cossy is a PIA and costly to maint but a big part of me is in that car.
I think I'll go in the garage and look at her for a bit
I do not know that it is necessarily important to do the work your self but as mentioned above, I do get a certain amount of satisfaction knowing I did it my self. I saved a butt load of money doing it my self and I know it was done right. I have a good mechanic who does excellent work but it costs money to have quality work done.