League of Legends (LoL) Question: How do I get myself to play ranked games?

Normals are there so you can hone your strategy, your ability, your comfort, and your knowledge. Use those to figure out which champs you enjoy playing, what matchups they're good against and not good against, how to cs, when to trade, when to all-in, etc. Something I used to do when practicing my cs, was creating a game in SR with just myself playing the champ I was working on. I'd go to lane, and see how long it took me to miss a cs. If I could make it to 10 minutes, then I'd start over and go to 20 minutes, until I could get every cs between the first turret and the nexus.

It's okay to feel that you haven't been playing well. Try not to let other people put you down because most of the time they are only flaming to divert attention from themselves and to 'paper over the cracks'.

If you think you don't do as well on SR, play some normal games and see how they go. You'll be playing without any pressure and you can maybe experiment with a few other champions or strategies. Only play ranked when you think you're at a good spot and you feel comfortable about your individual performances.

I obviously don't know a whole lot about how long you've been playing or how good you are in general, but the stupid aswer is: Don't. I know it might seem odd, but ranked is not a good place to learn and improve. People are super toxic and agressive, especially before you hit higher Gold tier.

What to do before ranked? Get practice in! Get confident.
Play your role in normal a lot, develop a champion pool. I'd go with at least 3+ champion you know somehwat well (aka mastery 35.000+) and develop a main champion. Figure out which champions your main is bad against and learn an alternative champion super well (Mastery 50.000+ or so) and learn your matchups. Try to learn a counter for those champions that would counter you usually, so you don't have to counter yourself due to a too small champion pool. Learn super different types of champions for your role (For example: If you're on toplane, figure out how to play carry champions like Camille or Rumble, but also learn the Tanks like Maokai or Nautilus // For midlane learn Mages like Syndra or Ahri, but also know the control end of the Specturm in Jacye and also some sort of assassin like Katarina or Zed...)

It may sound stupid, but the practice tool is amazing. You can learn to last hit there, the puppets allow you to practice machanics, another easy thing to paractice here is to go to your lane and target hitting 100 CS at roughly 10-12 minutes. You can even turn off turret fire if that annoys you. (A main jungle friend of mine practices his Lee Skin an hour a day on puppets - that's heavy investment, but it helps!)

The earlier you go into ranked, the more likely it gets that this game becomes insanely frustrating. Get your mind off the ranked grind. Play ARAMS between the games and once in a while just switch your role entirely, at least in tomral. Get a feeling how it is to play a Support. How it is to play that toplane tank. No need to strive for perfection there, but resetting your mental frame every now and then is essential. Don't play four ranked in a row, unless you have a sweet premade of friends that will keep your mindeset up through losses.

Prevent yourself from tilting. Lost two in a row? Go for a run or cook up some tasty food, get your mind off the game entirely. Don't look at the team (Don't: "I can't win with a jungler that bad!), as soon as someone starts tilting you just mute them (Don't ever flame back. It only tilts you and feeds the trolls). It's unlikely that they'll say anything useful for the rest of the game.

And lastly, supid as it may seem, Read and listen to guides! There's a huge load of articles and videos that help and explain things, from absolute basics to super advanced stuff, from general "How to play this champ" to "What to do if my lane is frozen?" to "When and how to roam as a support", you'll find literally anything you want to know. Use that resouce pool that the web provides.

I'm fairly new to the game myself, I have a Karma at 55k mastery, Morgana and Nautilus somewhere around 35k and I'm not even considering ranked yet, even though I can often outplay my lane opposition and help my ADC (I'm main support, duh) snowball hard. Yes, I do want to play ranked at some point when I'm very confident (I intend to learn Braum and Lulu well before I go into ranked), but there's a lot of way to go.