I studied physics as an undergrad and then went on to get a PhD from UW (Seattle), which has required courses for physics education that all graduate students must take. With ~10 years of physics study/practice/teaching, I think the one meta lesson I've carried with me is it's not about which book or which method, but rather the marathon process of ongoing exploration, which is often fueled by genuine interest and joy in exploring the subject. Exploration here applies to the subject itself in spirit, but in reality means exploring the resources to gather perspective and understanding.

The above probably sounds obvious (sorry!), but a lot of learning recommendation seems to focus on "the best" resource, which in my older years strikes me as kind of odd. In the grander scheme of studying something in earnest, time spent with any one book will not be the determiner of success. That's not to say there are no great books or resources, but rather if something is hard or not making sense you should try to approach the topic from another angle: read the chapter on the same topic from another text, or a few others, find some alternative lectures online, etc -- these days the resource list is near limitless... So, start somewhere, don't worry too much about how you start, and keep going!

A lot of the above opinion was motivated by a kind of serendipitous conversation I had with a physics professor. I returned to that convo often enough that I finally decided to write it down last year. Pardon the self plug, but intent was to help share a learning perspective: https://medium.com/@kevinconnolly/effort-neglect-and-the-sec...