I guess one could spend a lifetime studying prayer and still feel inadequate. My friend Tony Ash has spent his life studying prayer and even writing books (I think there is a new one) about it. In listening to his prayers at Minter Lane, one could tell that even he sometimes feels inadequate. (Although his prayers were mighty inspirations to me.)
A relative new way of approaching prayer is "praying through the Bible". That is, taking the prayers of the Bible in study or taking them and changing them somewhat and making them your own. It might be a good exercise for you to take one of David's prayers in the Psalms and paraphrase it to mirror your own experience. Perhaps you feel the need to be angry and cry out as he often did; or simply to just plead your own case for God's blessings in the midst of your shortcomings.
I like what Thomas Merton said about prayer: "If you want a life of prayer, the way to get it is by praying....You start where you are and you deepen what you already have."
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