"1702628792199.jpg" <- Definitely progress! One more thing to practice that I find helps: press the iron to the pad+tip, and watch it closely. You should see the solder melt, starting from where the tip is, and it'll wrap around the whole solder blob As soon as the whole thing looks liquid (usually it'll go from matte to shiny, watch the texture ), remove your iron. It should take less than a second or so for the whole process. If you get good at timing it, you should avoid getting the pads too hot. Right now, there's definitely some burnt color to the pads, it's hard to tell if you are holding it too long, or your iron tip is dirty, like others said.