I solved this by just buying all the high school math textbooks and going through those on my own. I preferred this way, because it lets you have the same background as everyone else.
In attempt #1 I was jumping ahead to read the interesting stuff (calculus), and while I could make some progress, it was needlessly difficult because I didn't start from the basics.
It attempt #2 I started from the very beginning (course 1 out of 10 mandatory high school courses), and focused on doing exercises. However progress was slow, because I would just continue forward when I felt like it.
Finally attempt #3 was successful. I committed to doing exercises in order consistently every day after waking up. This felt great, as every week I was making noticeable progress, and having all the prerequisite knowledge for each next step made progress much easier than I had imagined it could be.
With the slow start but gaining pace towards the later courses, I finished this self-study project in 2 years (could have been close to half that, had I gotten into the groove from the beginning), and found it quite enjoyable. It didn't feel like a chore at all, more like the highlight of each day.
While I'm not sure there actually are a lot of high school prerequisites for higher maths, I think the experience of attempts 1-3 reflect pretty much what might be the key to studying maths successfully.
So in my first year of studying maths, I had 8 hours of maths lectures (and 4 hours of a minor which was of negligible effort). The exercises that came with the maths lectures made this a full-time program (and I estimate that while I didn't usually study all weekend, I typically only had 1-2 weekends per year in which I didn't look at anything at all). So one thing that can easily go wrong is underestimating that for every minute spent reading / listening to a class, one would want to spend 4 minutes working the problems.
The other comment I would have is that, yes, university level mathematics is (at least it was for me) incredibly hard. The reward is also astonishing: All these hard exercises I struggled with one year, are easy to do on a napkin during breakfast in the next year.
Can you clarify how step 3 was different for you from step 2? (I’ve had similar unsuccessful steps 1 and 2, wondering what they keys were for you to turn the corner)
In step 2 I was just making progress when I felt like studying, so many days might pass between reading about some new concept and then needing to apply it. By that time I might have already forgotten some, and progress felt so slow that it wasn't very motivating to come back to it.
Doing it every day on the other hand, I would quickly need the thing I just learned, both reinforcing the learning and making it easier to apply it. Then as progress was much faster, it was more motivating as I could see myself making gradual progress each day, such that completing each course seemed like a doable undertaking.
In attempt #1 I was jumping ahead to read the interesting stuff (calculus), and while I could make some progress, it was needlessly difficult because I didn't start from the basics.
It attempt #2 I started from the very beginning (course 1 out of 10 mandatory high school courses), and focused on doing exercises. However progress was slow, because I would just continue forward when I felt like it.
Finally attempt #3 was successful. I committed to doing exercises in order consistently every day after waking up. This felt great, as every week I was making noticeable progress, and having all the prerequisite knowledge for each next step made progress much easier than I had imagined it could be.
With the slow start but gaining pace towards the later courses, I finished this self-study project in 2 years (could have been close to half that, had I gotten into the groove from the beginning), and found it quite enjoyable. It didn't feel like a chore at all, more like the highlight of each day.