OP,
Im guessing you are in your late 30’s?
You obviously have the discipline to dedicate yourself to a task as illustrated by your stellar checkride.
Here is a question though, how long did it take you? Any decent instructor would have started at Lesson 1.
I am not a stellar learner by any stretch so take this from somebody who knows: learning in aviation is not only about retention it is also about limited time.
Any professional training will be in a limited amount of time with a limited number of training sessions and maybe one or two allotted extra sessions.
It is not only about being able to do it it is equally about being able to learn it in the time given.
There are plenty of people out there that wash out or voluntarily resign from a Regional or a 135 because they can’t hack the pace of training. Has nothing to do with skill or the ability to learn per se.
Its about ability to learn in a limited time frame.
Hope that made sense somehow.