How to advance farther in Trad Climbing

So I have been climbing for a while now but recently started climbing trad last year with about a month of full time climbing in Yosemite before I started back up in school in Pittsburgh. I climbed with a bunch of people leading throughout the 5.4-5.7 range because I just never felt confident in my trad skills. I can lead 5.10b sport but am very hesitant if I am doing everything correctly. I have fallen on gear and it has all held solid so far.
Would the best progression be to just sucker up and hire a certified guide down at Seneca to reassure and criticize my anchors/placements/multipitch transitions? I didn’t get very much feedback while climbing in Yosemite.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

the guides at Seneca are all top notch and will meet you where you are ie. you'll spend your weekend with them building on what you know and you'll definitely learn a lot. Seneca itself also has a few 5.2 - 5.6 climbs if you wanna just learn by doing and build up a solid base of trad climbs.

I'm pretty noob and just went straight for professional instruction - I also find that knowing what I'm doing helps with finding partners for the weekend, etc. 

If you’re climbing .10b sport and 5.7 trad that sounds about right. Sport climb more, take an SPI instead you’ll probably learn more. Don’t expect to be leading the same grade on gear. 

I pushed my trad grade and it almost got me killed. Be careful with this stuff. 

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I definitely do not want to push it and end up getting hurt or worse. I think I will go and get a weekend of expert help to confirm I am safe, rather than feeling like falling will lead to death. 

I'm in the same boat. 5.10d sport and 5.7 at Eldo. It frustrating, but I think it just takes time and lots of mileage.

I am going to give different advice -- go to a place with bomber, splitter cracks -- i.e. Indian Creek or many granite climbing places in CA, WA Canada etc. -- and just try climbing harder cracks. The 5.10 trad climbs often are way safer than easy ones,  the gear is often better, the falls cleaner. Go get it!

the comfortability will come with mileage. When I first started trad climbing, I wouldn't lead above 5.7 on gear yet sport climbed 10b. I'm a weaker nowadays but after a few years of trad leading, I was leading 1, some 1.5 grades below sport climbing. Some of that gap is mental and some of it is simply that it is more difficult to place gear than clip a bolt. 

There are 3 things that make a huge difference

1. Climb with people who are a lot better than you.

2. Top roping the same route over and over and over again is GREAT. Trad/crack is way more technique based than pulling pockets on a sport route.
If you can get to Joshua Tree or similar place that is best. I've spent many days alone there this fall and winter top rope soloing hard routes with scary pro, off widths and 12+ finger cracks (that I definitely cannot lead)

3. Lastly, every time you go out, COMMIT to do do at least one route that will push you. "I can lead 5.7, I'm good at hand cracks so this 5.9 hand crack would be a good challenge"

I climb harder on gear now that I do sport climbing

EDIT: also mileage is super important. Look at the great trad climbers like Honnold and Gobright. They just climb all the time!

There is no substitute for mileage. Bouldering, sport, etc. will help but only slightly.

Be careful about "pushing your limits" as trad routes often find ways to push you even when you aren't seeking a challenge.

Trust your gear but don't hang dog off it. You can progress in trad while almost never falling on your gear.

Go try hard. No reason to climb "below your sport grade". Go push the limits and take whips. We gotz fancy gear now - jah feel?

I was fortunate to have an old school trad guy get me into climbing so I was following trad before I even set foot in a climbing gym. Something that has helped me immensely was to start leading routes with a monster rack and gradually eliminating gear on routes I was familiar with. There are a handful of easier routes I lead on just nuts now and feel totally comfortable with it. It’s a good way to force yourself into getting better using gear in more creative ways. Slotted and op posing nut placements are awesome. Hexes are a lost art as well and the DMM Torque Nut is a big improvement.

It is literally so hard to climb at your limit on gear. Maybe not Indian Creek splitters, where it’s plug and chug crack climbing, but most harder trad takes so much time to fiddle with small gear. Sport climbing is clip and go, no worries if the nut or cam is good enough. I really think if you are climbing the same grades for both sport and trad you aren’t trying hard enough. 

I agree with the above posters who said that almost all of us are climbing harder on sport routes than gear routes. Part of that is mental (and maybe can/should be overcome in some circumstances) and part of it is the added physical difficulty of hanging around to place gear. The grade differences are only going to be exacerbated the lower on the grade scale you're climbing, due to the very justifiable wariness of falling on low angle terrain.

I definitely recommend hiring  guide or taking a class to get some feedback on your gear placement and fall analysis (as in: is it ok to fall right now) skills. There's nothing wrong with paying a professional to teach you something; it does not constitute "suckering up", whatever that means. :)

Thank you all for the advice. I really do need to find some people better than me to climb with. It seems it is much easier to find people less experienced than myself willing to go out climbing. Which doesn't really help me for my cause. When I was in Yosemite, there was plenty of placements since most every route I was on had some sort of crack system.

I'm thinking to really get things rolling I will
1. Go down for a weekend with private lessons to ensure my placements/skills are all up to speed
2. Get better at crack climbing with top rope soloing
3. Try and climb with more experienced people and if that fails, just climb more trad for more mileage.  

I think the main benefit of climbing people better than you is overcoming mental barriers in what constitutes "hard" climbing. I recently went on a sport climbing trip where nearly everyone I climbed with was doing 5.13s. I started feeling like a chump for "only" climbing 5.12 and it pushed me to work harder.

There can definitely be advantages to being the best climber in the group, especially in trad climbing where the leads can be intimidating. If you're the best climber then the harder pitches are probably going to be yours and there's no one to bail you out, so you just sack up and do it. So as for #3, yeah just keep at it no matter who you're with, and eventually you will improve.