[jvanderbot]

I'm about the same age / situation as OP.

What changed for me vs school days is that I don't have long blocks of time to work on a problem, so a tricky problem is likely to be skipped. I had to actively force myself to not skip hard things, meaning some days all I did was spend 10 minutes on the problem, find the wrong answer, and go to bed to try again tomorrow. Eventually I get em and move on much happier.

Unlike school days you have years to do this right.

OP, I recommend you take parent's latter points to heart. I (and likely you) need to re-learn how to learn in this phase of our lives, vs what we were used to as younguns whose entire job was just learn.