I’ve also been reading textbooks more and experiencied some frustration, but I’ve found two things that, so far, help me get less stuck and feel less guilt.
After trying to learn math from textbooks on my own for a month or so, I started paying a tutor (DM me for details) with whom I meet once a week. Like you, I struggle with getting stuck on hard exercises and/or concepts I don’t understand, but having a tutor makes it easier for me to move on knowing I can discuss my confusions with them in our next session. Unfortunately, a paying a tutor requires actually having $ to spare on an ongoing basis, but I also suspect for some people it just “feels weird”. If someone reading this is more deterred by this latter reason, consider that basically everyone who wants to seriously improve at any physical activity gets 1-on-1 instruction, but for some reason doing the same for mental activities as an adult is weirdly uncommon (and perhaps a little low status).
I’ve also started to follow MIT OCW courses for things I want to learn rather than trying to read entire textbooks. Yes, this means I may not cover as much material, but it has helped me better gauge how much time to spend on different topics and allow me to feel like I’m progressing. The major downside of this strategy is that I have to remind myself that even though I’m learning based on a course’s materials, my goal is to learn the material in a way that’s useful to me, not to memorize passwords. Also, because I know how long the courses would take in a university context, I do occasionally feel guilt if I fall behind due to spending more time on a specific topic. Still, on net, using courses as loose guides has been working better for me than just trying to 100 percent entire math textbooks.
I’ve also been reading textbooks more and experiencied some frustration, but I’ve found two things that, so far, help me get less stuck and feel less guilt.
After trying to learn math from textbooks on my own for a month or so, I started paying a tutor (DM me for details) with whom I meet once a week. Like you, I struggle with getting stuck on hard exercises and/or concepts I don’t understand, but having a tutor makes it easier for me to move on knowing I can discuss my confusions with them in our next session. Unfortunately, a paying a tutor requires actually having $ to spare on an ongoing basis, but I also suspect for some people it just “feels weird”. If someone reading this is more deterred by this latter reason, consider that basically everyone who wants to seriously improve at any physical activity gets 1-on-1 instruction, but for some reason doing the same for mental activities as an adult is weirdly uncommon (and perhaps a little low status).
I’ve also started to follow MIT OCW courses for things I want to learn rather than trying to read entire textbooks. Yes, this means I may not cover as much material, but it has helped me better gauge how much time to spend on different topics and allow me to feel like I’m progressing. The major downside of this strategy is that I have to remind myself that even though I’m learning based on a course’s materials, my goal is to learn the material in a way that’s useful to me, not to memorize passwords. Also, because I know how long the courses would take in a university context, I do occasionally feel guilt if I fall behind due to spending more time on a specific topic. Still, on net, using courses as loose guides has been working better for me than just trying to 100 percent entire math textbooks.