Problem is, I'm very much the kind of learner who finds it difficult to do anything unless I have an actual goal in mind to work towards. I learnt programming to begin with because I wanted to code certain things with it (mostly websites and apps for things I was interested in), and pretty much learnt everything else in life for similar reasons.
As a result, the idea of just doing something for the heck of it, or worse following a tutorial to make a todo list app feels utterly pointless to me.
So how do you motivate yourself to learn more in this situation? How do people learn if they don't have anything new they're dying to build/work on?
Just read it - like it was a novel
When you get a "goal", you will at least be nominally-acquainted with the language/product capabilities, and you should be able to find what you are looking for relatively quickly
That is how I [overview] taught myself to solder back in the 90s
And PHP 4
And Opsware SAS
And countless other things over the years
Sure - it is 'only' head knowledge until you use it: but making yourself aware of what you will later use is vital
Heck - it is probably how you learned math back in grade school: there was no "goal", you just learned it
It was not until much later that you were able to apply all that knowledge to any goals