So I’ve officially started grinding cybersecurity, and I keep asking myself: “Am I doing this right… or just going in circles?”

Here’s what my path looks like so far: • I was working through TryHackMe labs one by one, which felt great until I hit the Wireshark lab. • Instead of breezing through, I paused and thought: “Wait—if I’m going to use this in the real world, I should actually understand it.” • That turned into a rabbit hole: now I’m watching Chris Greer and David Bombal’s Wireshark lectures, spending days just digging into packet analysis, filters, dissecting protocols—the works. • Next up for me is Nmap, and I kind of want to go deep on that too.

So basically my “strategy” is: pick one tool → learn it properly → move to the next.

But here’s the problem: • I have no idea when this actually translates into real-world skill. • Part of me worries I’m moving too slow and overthinking things. • Another part of me says depth > speed, and this will pay off later.

So I want to throw this out to people who’ve already been here: • Is going tool-by-tool (deep dives) actually the right way to build a foundation? • Or should I focus more on scenarios/labs that use multiple tools, even if I don’t fully “master” them yet? • When did you first feel confident enough to move from “just learning tools” to actually tackling real-world problems?

I don’t want shortcuts—I just want to know if I’m climbing the right mountain.

Any advice (or even stories of how you approached it) would help a ton.