Escaped tutorial hell by doing the one thing every guide told me to and I ignored for a year

Build something with no tutorial open. That's the whole trick. I resisted forever because the blank editor is terrifying and my first attempts were ugly.

But the moment I had to solve a problem no video had pre-solved for me, things I'd "learned" ten times finally became mine. The projects are janky and I don't care — I finally feel like I'm coding instead of transcribing.