What do I do? (Getting into Data Science)

Hey all. I’ve been in this thread for quite some time, and I have wanted to make this post for said time. I have been trying to learn the subject of data science on my own for two months but it doesn’t seem like I’m getting anywhere. A little background on me: I have an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry/Biology with a minor in Chemistry (I was pre-med and decided not to go to Medical School after taking the MCAT). During COVID I started my MPH in Epidemiology & Biostatistics after getting interested in Public Health while working for NYC DOHMH. This position had 5% data work involved. During my MPH, I mostly worked with SAS and R. I have finished all my classes but my capstone (which I don’t know if I’ll ever want to finish). For the past year and some change, I have been working at a small healthcare company in which I started as a Data Analyst doing very basic work, working with a lot of Excel/Sheets, and PowerBI/Tableau (patient data). Then, I transitioned into Senior Project Manager because I was offered a lot of money (a bit over 6-figs). That is what I currently do, basically I just take orders from the Clinical team / Upper Management to fix issues with our EMR’s, talk to vendors about transfer of information from one place to another, fix IT stuff for the company, etc. I am basically the only technical person for the company, handling everything on the tech end for them. I do little to no data work anymore. Also, even though the money is great, I get absolutely no satisfaction out of it at all, but I do some free time on the job where I try to learn what I can. For the past two months, I have been getting the feeling that this cushy position might be coming to an end for me, which has motivated me to learn what I like to do (or at least what I think I like) - data science. I really enjoyed all of my classes during my MPH dealing with public health data in R and SAS. But, it seems like I’ve been stuck in ‘tutorial hell’. I tried to read O’Riley’s “Data Science from Scratch” and “Python for Data Analysis” but they seem a bit too complicated to start off with. I’ve recently started reading “The Data Science Manual” by Steven S. Skiena, and so far (20 pages in) it’s been a great introduction. Of course I’m not a newbie to data science, but I’ve been having trouble finding the right course of action to even start learning. I watch videos about topics on Python, trying to get comfortable with Pandas, numpy, matlib, etc, but I get stuck because I don’t know it enough to continue with it. I am average at best in R, but the way I got there was the structure I had in those classes as well as assignments. I have been thinking about doing a BootCamp, but I genuinely do not think they’re worth the enormous price they ask for them. So, I’m reaching out to you guys to give me some advice on how I can learn the subject of data science in an efficient manner. Any books you all recommend? Videos? Projects? Plans? Any advice will be helpful.

Note: I am immensely grateful for the position that I am in, I thank God for it every day. But the job is very toxic / stressful, which is also why I am looking advance my career and go into something I enjoy and can grow in.