"Last week I’m in a café, rewatching the same JavaScript tutorial for the 23rd time. Next to me? A 16-year-old casually building a Discord bot that streams live sports data."

You don't learn software development by just looking at tutorials, you learn software development by solving something real, something you want to accomplish. The 16yo probably isn't as great a coder, but they wanted something, a discord bot, and they just built it. Tutorials are a dull chore. Solving real problems will teach you the stuff you actually need and give a feeling of success like no tutorial or made up training project ever can, no matter how well it is presented. Also, if you're 9 years into coding as a hobby and cannot whip up a to-do-app almost instantly you really should rethink how you spend your time and effort. Woodworking is also fun.