“Enjoy the journey” is terrible advice if you actually want to learn Japanese fast

I keep seeing the same soft advice about learning Japanese:
"Take your time."
"Don’t translate."
"Input only."
"Fluency will come naturally."

That mindset feels like cope.

I've been studying Japanese hard for months now. Not casually. Not aesthetically. Daily Anki reps, grammar drills, forced output, italki lessons, shadowing, reading things I barely understand, and yes translating in my head even though the internet says that's a sin.

Here's the controversial part:
Pressure and repetition beat vibes and patience every time.

What actually accelerated my progress wasn’t immersion alone. It was brute force pattern drilling, memorizing sentence structures, and getting corrected constantly instead of letting mistakes self-resolve

I didn't wait until I felt ready to speak. I spoke early, badly, and often. I treated Japanese less like a hobby and more like training for something with consequences.

And somehow… it worked. Faster than when I followed the just enjoy anime and it'll happen crowd.

So I'm genuinely asking:
Is Japanese only supposed to be learned slowly because people want it to feel poetic?
Or is most mainstream advice optimized to keep learners comfortable instead of competent?

If you’ve ever learned Japanese under pressure, deadlines, or real stakes, I want to hear what actually moved the needle. Not philosophy. Not study aesthetics. Results only."