Short answer is that I'm a competent autodidact living in a time where it's easy to research anything with YouTube, ChatGPT and paid mentorship in a remarkably compressed amount of time.
In fairness, my father was an engineer and my grandfather was an inventor; 35+ years developing software and being in proximity to electronics and people building stuff is certainly part of my story. However, aside from the whole mental health / needing to chart a new path thing, the main thing that motivated me was watching inspiring creators on YouTube (Wintergatan, Stuff Made Here, Hacksmith etc) and realizing that a lot of the gap between me being the audience vs being a maker myself was fear of starting. I kind of had to give myself permission to change how I saw myself.
I am reasonably smart and I have a pretty decent work ethic, but the main thing I have going for me is stubborn determination and patience.
If you remember one thing from this, it's that learning without a specific end goal is pointless or even harmful. It's like going to a hardware store and buying every tool just in case. Instead, you need to identify a project that you feel passionate enough to finish. Then you do what engineers do: recursively break down big tasks into smaller tasks, and then go down whatever rabbit holes are required until you are finished. I recommend not setting (or telling anyone about) delivery dates.
Two resources that I highly recommend:
1. I had no idea that CAD - I highly recommend you skip right to Fusion, which is free for casual use - would be such a huge part of my life a year ago... but now I think that it's hilarious that this wasn't obvious from the start. I learned by following along with this video, step by step. It's 90 minutes long and it will take you about a week to complete. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK60ROb2RKI
2. Too few people talk about how incredible ChatGPT is for circuit design and engineering. It is just as impactful as its ability to write code. However, when you hit a wall on what you can Google or watch, I highly recommend John Teel's Hardware Academy. It's an engineering mentorship platform, and the people there are excellent. You can get feedback on PCB design, manufacturing questions, suppliers. There's video courses, too. https://thehardwareacademy.com/
Thank you for this resourceful answer. Hardware might not be my ultimate goal, but some of your thoughts and conclusions are quite universal.
I agree that ChatGPT is a valuable tool in certain areas. Education is one of them, as long as people don't solely rely on this platform and keep on questioning and verifying information via primary sources. It certainly has accelerated software development in my company as well, to a degree.