No one really ever learns on their own, they eventually pick up things from random sources or possibly through one good source such as a mentor or class. When I first started learning game development it was a bit tough. Not too many great resources online, even from the companies that created the software. So you’d learn enough from a tutorial, but not enough to really move forward.
Eventually you pick up small pieces here and there and you start bridging them together. You learn one tip from someone and then another and you put them together to make something completely new. With learning there’s always going to be that risk that what you’re learning isn’t ideal or even a great way to learn something, but I don’t believe that will ever go away. You eventually learn what works best through time and experience.
I would say these days it’s a bit of a double edged sword. There’s far more resources these days to learn from, which means you have many ways of seeing how something was created, but that also means it could give you analysis paralysis in trying to decide what method you should stick with. Not to mention that some people are just not well suited to teach.
You’ll get the “intuition” over time. Unfortunately no one can give you a definite path, but what I would say is look for those that are doing what you want to be doing. Also look for the outliers. How you can achieve something quicker by focusing on the real “meat” of what you should be learning instead of the fluff.
