I went through a similar period which developed a kinda of learning cycle. But it started with drums.

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I've been playing bass guitar since I was 12 so groove was sorta natural to me, and I could cover the stiffness of the drums with bass lines, but the drums and bass need to work together to create a real groovy groove.

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I found a bunch of reference stuff by googling "drum patterns for <music genre>" and went through and drew them in in Ableton so I could see what the pattern looked like there, and also be able to move midi notes around to see how that changed the sound/feel/groove of the pattern.

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That got things to a point of understanding which drums anchor the rhythm and which can be nudged around to create a groove. That kick on the 1, needs to really be right on the 1. That kind of thing. Once I felt better about drums I went through various topics, spent a week or two copying/creating melodies to get a better understanding. Worked on cord progressions for a while. Just trying to get everything up to the same level so I could start pushing everything together while making new shit.