Going your own way
The alternative to the restrictions of hiring and group flying is to get your own aeroplane. You will need somewhere to keep it. If that's a farm strip you will need to convince the owner that you are a safe and considerate pilot.
One factor if you do go down that route, there is no longer someone looking over your shoulder. Learning experiences (aka mistakes) come thick and fast. Eventually you become your own FI / Mentor / Conscience.
It worked for me. With a total of 70 flying hours, I bought an LAA (PFA in those days) Permit aircraft that I could safely fly from a local farm strip. The plan was to keep it for a few years then buy a real aeroplane. That was seventeen years ago and I never got around to buying a real aeroplane. Up to the strip later to clean off the bugs from a couple of weeks touring down to SW France and the Pyrenees, in company with another fourmite and her aeroplane.
One Aviation Quotation, with similar sentiments to Pilot DAR above, which you may have already heard:
At one hundred hours, I thought I knew it all.
At five hundred hours, I knew I knew it all.
At five thousand hours, I know I'll never know it all!
Safe Flying,
Richard W.