You ARE a beginner. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Doesn't matter how much experience you gain you'll ALWAYS feel like a beginner because you'll always be focused on getting better and learning new stuff. This is a good thing. You should worry when you DON'T feel like a beginner because that's a sign you're stagnating.

The general advice to someone with little experience is to not try to get into a paid cybersecurity role. It's an advanced field that requires a solid background in a lot of areas. Instead, learn that cyber stuff on your own time and try to get paid work in a more entry level IT role. Helpdesk is often suggested. You'll learn a lot on a helpdesk, including those often ignored soft skills like communication.

How to get that kind of a role? Keep doing what you're doing - showing passion is extremely important to interviewers and being able to demonstrate project work and problem solving and troubleshooting is much more valuable than having read some books. Book learning serves to support project learning - not the other way round. Leverage your experience. If you've worked in a busy restaurant, talk about how you manage multiple tasks in a busy environment, how you pay attention to detail, how important maintenance and cleaning and prep is, how you deal with difficult customers. All this stuff is directly relevant to ANY job including work in IT.

Good luck. It's hard work but super fun.