A couple of questions/suggestions:
1. What exact Mac model do you have?
2. What Mac OS are you currently using?
3. What Mac OS do you want to update to?
4. Have you ever done any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs, from a software perspective? You actually can do quite a lot of disk cleanup on your own, and there are a number of excellent products available (both free and commercial) that can assist you with those tasks.
5. This is
critical: are you making backups to an external device?
6. Are you using any third party (ie, non-Apple) software? If you are, make sure they are either compatible "as is" with the Mac OS you plan to upgrade to, or download the necessary updates. This site can help you with that:
https://roaringapps.com/apps
If it's been a while since you last updated the Mac OS, and especially if you have not done much in the way of disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs, it might be best if you do a clean, fresh installation of the new Mac OS. However, that is where a backup is absolutely necessary.