OP Did your mother/grandmother cook? Did they teach you? I think that (as part of a general undervaluing of traditionally female skills) this aspect of recent generations' education has been sadly overlooked. Some of my earliest memories are of "helping" my mother to cook. In that way, I learned something that is so important but very rarely mentioned in formal recipes: the almost living 'feel' of a correct mixture. To know what that is gives so much confidence and reassurance.
I agree with previous posters who suggest Delia. I think she is excellent. Precise, reliable, appetising. I also am a great admirer of Nigella. What she says about the feel and scent and general texture a food is also really important. Learn from both of them - pay attention! be precise! be sensuous! -then it is really quite difficult to go wrong.
I bake our bread and in an old cookery book there is an instruction to knead the dough until it resembles 'a milking breast'. That is, in my experience, a brilliant instruction. I have never found it to fail. But it's all about texture and experience. And - I think - paying attention.
If you find following a recipe difficult, just (as others have said) print it out and have it in front of you; get everything ready, then approach it calmly, step by step. Random extras or substitutions rarely work - why else would there be recipes? - especially when cooking cakes or pastry. A dear friend of mine - former head of department in home economics - explained this well. In a stew or similar, an extra carrot here or there does not matter. But cooking a cake is a precise chemical process. You have to use the exact ingredients, the correct oven temperature and (often overlooked, as a previous poster very correctly pointed out) but really, really important, the right sized baking tin.
You talk about pancakes and waffles- I've no idea of the precise quantities I use but I still find them really are easy. (I have been in hotels in Austria/Germany where there is a non-stick electric waffle iron as part of the breakfast buffet, and I have seen 10 year olds happily take a ladleful of the CORRECT mixture and cook their own waffles in just a few minutes. Just don't mess - they don't - with the basic PROPORTIONS of the recipe.)
For my own pancakes (waffles need a slightly stiffer mixture) , I just mix approx treble quantities by volume of flour and egg (three tablespoons flour to one large egg) beat well then add milk until the texture is like single cream. (Wholemeal flour will need more milk than light white flour - the bran it contains absorbs more water.) Then pour a small ladlefull into a lightly greased (I use olive oil) hot but not smoking pan. Tip until the mixture covers the pan surface in as thin as layer as possible. By now, you should be beginning to smell an appetising toasty smell. Wait a minute or two - concentrate! - until you can see the mixture curling a little around the edges. Loosen the pancake all round with a spatula or similar - don't force it; at the right temperature it should easily come free when it's nicely cooked - and turn it over; the bottom should be a nice light golden brown flecked colour. Wait another minute or so for the flipped side to cook then tip out on to a plate. Just practice a bit; I've been doing this since I was around six - of course it does not come easily at first. But use your senses of touch, feel and smell. The pancake can be whatever diameter you choose, so long as it is thin.
In an ideal world, find somone to show you. That's how female cooking and baking skills have traditionally been passed on, and there are few better ways of teaching practical cooking.