Don't beat yourself up.

If you're totally new, consider mobile apps, or making websites in JavaScript (I personally suggest the app route). One reason to focus on those two is that they both involve visual displays of your abilities. If you're looking for your first job, you can just pull your phone put of your pocket, and someone can quickly see if you've made something good or not. You can easily prove your abilities. However, if your focus is more on back end, server side code with no UI, people have no idea if what you made is good or not, and if you don't have the credentials or resume, it might be hard to get credibility. Your code (unfortunately) is often judged on how it looks, so pick something where you can make an impressive UI. Also, companies will be more willing to hire you in those kinds of roles - they're comfortable having an unproven person change a button's size or color, but they're probably uncomfortable with letting an unproven rookie mess around with their servers.

Also, it took me three years to get a job, but I wasn't exactly working 8 hours a day - honestly I think I probably spent no more than 20 hours a week studying, and took months off at a time. Sometimes I'd work 10 hours a week. I admittedly could have gone faster, but I just found the process of learning to be absolutely exhausting. And it was! That's ok, the process is difficult. I don't think it is even possible to spend 8 hours in a row learning to code, I was and am still incapable of doing that. And that's ok, you can still be successful despite that, just keep at it.

Don't be afraid to ask for an internship! It was a little embarrassing to ask for one at 30, but it might have changed my life. I learned more in the three months as an intern than I had in the entire year previously. Once you get in a company, your learning can really take off, so study up and try to get in a company that is willing to train you. I would have been happy to do it for minimum wage if it meant getting trained, and I'm sure a lot of you understand that.