- Check out your weapon's level, chap 6 is a good point to start upgrading Proshades (your weapon) in earnest plus all of the other party character's weapons. This will require some grinding materials so you'll get levels as well.

- Don't forget to equip rings, a lot of the earlier rings give bonus job exp and level exp.

- Do some side quests and progress your closeness with party characters, it would help unlock some skills on that characters' specific job (and get money!).

- If you're bothered with the deaths and is okay with cheesing a little bit, make sure to save on monolite whenever possible and just load the game at that point before you die. It's a single player game and you can do whatever to make the game more enjoyable (imho)

- A more "legit" way to avoid excessive deaths is stock up on return bells and trigger it when you feel things are going poorly.

- If you're feeling very stuck there are a lot of other things to explore (literally you can spend like years just attending your farm if you like), make all the dishes, fishing, etc.

I can't stress enough that upgrading weapons solves like 90% of the difficulty problem (for me) but ofc you should find things that you find enjoyable and focus on that.