Look for a mentor who is already working on a real-world project. The problem with learning things on your own is that the examples from which you are self-lear

Look for a mentor who is already working on a real-world project. The problem with learning things on your own is that the examples from which you are self-learning are (by design) too simple and often unrelated to a result that you want. That's not to say the tutorial/source would be completely unrelated, but it sounds like from your post, that coding isn't something that comes easily which means that in order to make the leap to something that you actually want to do, you'll need more than a book to guide your way. The great thing about a mentor is that they (should) will have a real life problem for you to solve and they can help you work through some of the subtleties of the problem. I used to think that anyone can learn to code (this was when I was 18). I find, now, that there are people that are more naturally inclined to it and some people that will never be able to, because their brains don't work that way. I would gently encourage you to be open to discovering where you lie on that spectrum and not to be too disappointed if you've tried but still find yourself swimming in molasses.