The truth is, programming is honestly not so hard. It just seems that way to you because it's so easy to convince yourself of that. I want to emphatically remind you that it's not. You have to believe that it's not hard before you can get good at it.

And it doesn't help that programming courses, like much of school, sometimes suck the excitement and imagination right out of you while simultaneously instilling fear.

Forget that, and just start coding. Anything! It really doesn't matter what. The only way to get good it programming is to program a lot. It doesn't matter if what you make is good, well-written, useful to anybody (even yourself), etc. Find something interesting to you for whatever reason, and just start programming--start now and don't stop--and you will become proficient way faster than you realize is possible.