Something I see a lot of people doing when they start trying to improve their picking is anchoring the fingers of their picking hand somewhere on the guitar.
The most common way to do this this is too rest them on the body of the guitar or the pick guard.
I’ve also seen people hold on to the pickups or the strings of the guitar with the fingers of their picking hand.
I understand why someone might feel the need to do this – it helps them feel anchored while they attempt to pick from string to string.
Unfortunately, it’s not doing picking technique any favours.
The reason WHY this is bad is because it doesn’t allow your picking hand to move in the best way possible to develop fast, accurate picking and eliminate excess string noise with muting.