I wouldn't say I'm a top notch programmer by any means, but one thing ironically that made be better is to take a step back for a while and stop programming and

I wouldn't say I'm a top notch programmer by any means, but one thing ironically that made be better is to take a step back for a while and stop programming and try to learn, read and understand things better. This doesn't work unless you've been programming for a bit and have some hands on the basics, but it does help to break bad habits. Stick with standards and conventions, even if they seem stupid. Just do them. Four spaces in python, that sort of thing. Pretend they're rules of the language, pretend that not following them will break your program. Try to understand data types and structures, they're vastly more important than programming. Knowing how to write code, syntax, libraries only helps you if you understand the data you're manipulating, what you want to do with it, and how it is best structured for your purpose. You're better off knowing about data structures and not knowing a single programming language than the opposite. Finally, build things, solve problems. If you want to do something, do it. Don't worry about if you're good enough.