What I've found is that the real challenge for a beginner is making continuous and sustained progress. The key number in the (1.01)^365 equation is the ^365 part. Do something difficult every single day.

Beyond just sticking with it, you also need to continually challenge yourself. Avoid staying into the comfort zones that fear and ego will shunt you into.

These are very difficult to do as a beginner because you're going to encounter so many demoralizing roadblocks. I still remember when I first started writing code. It was incredibly painful. Things that now take me minutes would take days.

The real key here isn't some technique that will make the learning easier, it's in getting the emotional fortitude to push through these struggles. Your struggles will be unique and it's impossible for me to prepare you with solutions for every novel challenge you face. "Ask not for lighter burdens, ask for stronger backs" and all that jazz. There's a lot of resources online, esp. on Youtube, about increasing mental discipline. Cold showers, fasting, mental discipline, stoicism, etc. I recommend investing some time into trying these techniques for improving pain tolerance.

Every fact worth learning will be useful in the application of some particular skill, and will be of little use outside that context. Skills are the part of this equation that compound with each other, and sometimes in unintuitive ways; the more and varied mental skills you’re able to acquire, the easier it gets to learn new ones.

Spend time looking for absolutely well curated, well reviewed learning texts regarding a topic that interests you, often in the form of a university course or a blog on a specific topic. Then dedicate time every day to go through it, really be present, make notes and finish. Try learning approaches like spaced repetition learning.

If you want to solidify your knowledge, make a 30-min talk for your peers about the topic. Commit to make it perfect and be prepared for their questions.

And remember that friendship must be actively maintained.

Make more mistakes. I learned to cook by messing up dishes. I've messed up enough dishes to know how not to mess up.

You have to be comfortable with making mistakes and being bad at things, because it happens a lot when you're just getting started.