Try implementing something that has a real world use case. It may not matter that your use case doesn't have much of an audience. My first Python web app was a

Try implementing something that has a real world use case. It may not matter that your use case doesn't have much of an audience. My first Python web app was a syslog search/filter app that I only used on my home network machines. After a couple of tutorials you really need to break out and try something on your own. I got quite proficient in C++ by specifically using it in programming competitions such as those hosted by TopCoder or CodinGame. I wasn't in the competition for the top score I was there to learn. I knew about core C/C++ syntax but not much about the standard library. Now I do, as I needed to quickly use the stdlib to get the data structures I needed to solve the problem.