Topic. I can help.

Help me get out of simplistic mindsets. I've been learning it for a little while now and I can't seem to broaden my perspective on how to write what I need to get done, if that makes sense? I'm still stuck thinking in ways they teach you at the beginning instead of thinking about what calls I can make or other tools to reference, etc.

Would you recommend just continuing to read and write through books like how to automate the boring stuff?

If you know how to navigate some basics you don't need to systematically read through books. Rather, treat them as reference guides on how to do a particular thing, no frills, quick start (especially books along the lines of automate the boring stuff). To develop your perspective / mindset / approach you might find it valuable to up a hobby project.

Once you've picked something you want to go through the process of solution design - so at the highest level what are the major components / functionality you need to implement. From there you can pseudo code your way to something that looks like a functioning code base and organise the behaviour into classes, functions etc (whatever you're familiar and comfortable with for the time being).

You'll run into all kinds of questions and "oh I didn't consider this" once you start concretely implementing your pseudo code. It is this experience / feedback loop that will enable you to "broaden your perspective".