Learning new skills isn't easy. In fact, it can be extremely frustrating.

One thing we (and I include myself here) consistently try to use in our learning is tutorials. It's understandable why we like them. They are step by step, (hopefully) lead to a repeatable outcome, and we get a little dopamine hit when we finish and it works.

The problem is that we haven't learned much. We've copied what someone else has built and we still don't know how to build our own things.

Here are 2 alternatives for better learning:

Build your own project - Decide that you want to apply the skills you are learning to solving a problem or building something.

After a frustrating experience with using a tutorial, I was thinking about the times I've learned the most. The most consistent factor I found was that I was building something towards a specific objective. I had to figure it out as I went and keep pushing towards completing the project. I was building.

I won't say it's easy, but you'll learn way more this way.

Expand on the tutorial - It may not be practical to build a project to learn something specific. In this case, use the tutorial as a jumping off point.

In this one you go through the tutorial and then use your new familiarity to do something similar on your own. For example, if you are learning about SQL injection and have used DVWA, switch to Juice Shop and apply what you learned there.

You will learn more by pushing beyond what an exercise or tutorial covers.

We learn from the struggle

As frustrating as it is, we learn better by struggling on our own to some extent.

I don't mean that we should endlessly bang our heads into a wall. We can and should the available resources help us solve problems. But the key us for us to solve it in our own way and not use what someone else has done.

You will find that you learn far more and become much better skilled this way than by following a tutorial step by step.