The first thing to keep in mind is that it takes a long time – thousands upon thousands of hours. I think the best way to utilize those hours is to spend them b

The first thing to keep in mind is that it takes a long time – thousands upon thousands of hours. I think the best way to utilize those hours is to spend them building real applications, and to always be pushing your comfort zone in some way. That could be by utilizing a new piece of infrastructure, working in a new language, or working on a new problem space that's very challenging to you. Make sure to seek jobs that enable you to consistently push your comfort zone like that! If you keep doing that, after many years you'll become a very strong programmer.