I consider myself an "average" person teaching himself to code and the first thing I did was make a commitment to aggressively imbue the activity into my lifest

I consider myself an "average" person teaching himself to code and the first thing I did was make a commitment to aggressively imbue the activity into my lifestyle for the 'I need to learn to think like a programmer" reasons you mentioned. I don't believe you can truly "learn" this stuff any other way. It needs to become habitual and the easiest way is to absorb it into your day to day existence regardless of how irritating or slow it may seem for the first...three years