I love coding but I am horrible at it

Relatively speaking, sure, but in absolute terms isn't almost everyone kinda shit at programming? Ars longa and so forth.

I've been programming for creeping up on 30 years, since I was 7, and built a conga line of impressive software, but my designs are often some awkward thing I fumbled my way into discovering, my code isn't half as structured as it could be and my variable names are weird and inconsistent.

I have such relationship with mathematics. I really like it and until certain point I was good at it. Then at the university I really struggled with all the abstraction. I did finish my degree in mathematics but with barely passable grades. Yeah I could have spent hours/days after it but that would take away lot of fun and then it just turned into passing exams. There were people who were quite good at it without putting too much effort. So that was kind of demoralizing when you are spending hours to understand something that others did in few hours.

I am not horrible at programming but don't care very much about it as long as I am able to solve problems at work. Interviewing/leetcoding is definitely something different.

This person does not "love" programming, and statements like "Our uni doesn’t have any for actual coding courses" (in response to needing to solve more actual problems) or "I have purchased the clean code book that I am reading" (unless you're a genius, and let's just say that most of us are not, you will not succeed by merely passively absorbing the material; you only think you understand the concepts, but until you actively apply what you've learned to solve problems, you are only deceiving yourself in proportion to your conviction that you actually understand and can apply the underlying theory) make this abundantly clear.

If this person really wishes to improve, then the first step they must take is to correctly characterize the problem. How can they "love" doing something, when a) they're clearly not doing the most obvious thing they need to be doing, b) when told what to do, blame their reluctance to do the work on an external factor ("uni doesn't ... and as I result, I am not doing what I need to be to be able to apply concepts that I learned, which is to actively apply them toward solving problems").

I am ok with the problem solving part. But I didn't do CS and suck at math so the solutions I come up with may not be the best. It will work but it won't look pretty or be the fastest iteration. Good thing I don't make a living from coding.

Staring at an insoluble problem is something you get used to. Eventually experience tells you that a solution will come (for me in the shower). In many ways it can be like trekking in the wilderness. Many delights, occasional nightmares. Things will improve.

This is interesting to me. I think I actually dislike coding but am good at it.