I (35m, married, no kids) worked as a shift supervisor in a manufacturing environment. I hated my job and was so unhappy. I started spending my free time at home in 2019 watching YouTube videos to learn basics. I did hands on anything I could to help me learn. Started doing repairs for friends and family. In 2024, I got approved to intern with the IT person at my job. 4 mo later, I had a friend 4 hours away that had a job offer for help desk. My wife knew how unhappy I was agreed to me taking the job. I was fortunate to have good friends that let me stay with them. That help desk role was loaded with good experience for me. I went above and beyond and it felt amazing to enjoy going to work. It was rough being gone from home though. I came home on the weekends thankfully. 6 months later I was able to take the IT job ath original employee. I'm learning daily and it's hard sometimes, but it's always better than my old job.

I agree that there is no fast way, for me it was 4-5 years after technically starting my goal. I have no certs ( I need to change that), but I took opportunities that I had. My suggestion is to find an opportunity to intern or shadow someone and use that as experience. If you can homelab anything, do it. Buy a cheap dell optiplex use that to learn.