Hey, Im currently a uni student (engineering), on my second year, starting in september. Last year failed physics 1 and 2. I do have to say that I never studied physics before (long story), so this is not surprising.

I however passed Calculus, DEQ, vector analysis (vector calc), linear algebra, and statistics, and some other classes unrelated (just saying Im not completely dumb).

So, my main issue with physics is solving problems, many times I just blank out and have no idea how to even start. I also can't just remember formulas without memorising them. Everyone says "you just have to understand them, not memorise", but many times on an exam I just can't remember it, so I can't solve the problem. Is the solution (for me) really just memorising?
Also, if the problem is completely new, I have no idea how to solve it, I really struggle with coming up with new solutions, I lose myself in the quantity of formulas there are

How do you tackle physics problems?