Oh man, I’ve managed to get far enough into all this that I have a few things working well but i went through so many periods exactly like that.

The family nagging really hits home! “This should be working, I did everything it said” only goes so far haha.

My latest one was that I was helping my neighbour with their internet setup so was on their WiFi. Of course I completely forgot so when I was home trying to SSH into my headless server, it just would not work but I knew my server was working because I was watching Plex on my TV. It took my way longer than it should’ve and I even restarted the server manually before realising I was just on the wrong network…

Cisco do free networking courses which teach the fundamentals. The one I did was more theoretical than practical but it really helped me think of what Im really trying to achieve and learning the terminology was really helpful, especially later when trying to troubleshoot and finding help online that was a struggle before the course.

There are assessments as you progress and a certificate at the end.

They also have virtual software you can play around with for different potential configurations. Thats much cheaper than buying lots of hardware!