I tried to code before thinking about the problem. It's a dead end really. Your mind can't be but deadpan and dejected if you try this, at least most of the times, because it doesn't make sense.
I kept learning more about the language, and kept forgetting all of it because I never really used all of it anywhere — I didn't really have any hands on properly. This was tempting to me, at the start of my career because I wanted to catch up. I wanted to learn as much as possible. But that's not how it works. I wrote about about in this hashnode answer
I'd not understand a concept / a problem properly (but thought that I have) and then tried to propagate and stand by my falsified opinion (which turned out to be very embarrassing more than one time). For example when Google first released its Material guidelines (I was in my first week of training in my first job then, with no prior programming experience whatsoever), I thought Google had devised a physical way to provide depth in devices because of the "physical width of the display/screen". 🤦♂️
I didn't work on side projects. First 1.5 years into my first job, I'd have a seemingly stunning idea, I'll work on it in a weekend, setup a boiler plate, then I won't work on it ever. Last year this changed. I started up with a couple of projects — 1. to set up an alumni system for my alma mater (it doesn't have one) 2. make a small poetry editor. I have failed 3 times trying to build a solid alumni network. My most successful (least terrible) attempt. I've started working on it again. Poetry Editor I had been constantly working on, then paused for a couple of months then I've started again now.
One astounding thing that I got to learn while working on the editor
Git Hard Reset Blunder which Tyler McGinnis fell prey for as well — twitter.com/tylermcginnis/status/9647516134192865…
Not writing. I come under the people category who have terrible retention power. I'd keep visiting already visited links again and again. Then I gave writing a try , and especially after Preethi Kasireddy started writing. As soon as I stumble upon something unique / needed I write about it either on my blog or on [medium: Web Bos's Learn Node Course Review] (medium.com/@arihantverma/review-experience-wes-bo…).
I didn't read enough code. There will come a time, where you'll hit a straight wall. You'll think hard where you should go next. You'd have read every blogpost every advanced coverage of API and features in the docs itself, but you'll struggle to go to the next level to make something real. You'll get tremendous help from very detailed courses like Web bos's Learn Node and Pluralsight's Advanced Nodejs. But even then you'll somehow feel stagnated and not be able to understand why.
At one point of time or the other, you'll realise that the only way to get on the next level is to read code, contribute to open source. Also really detailed courses like on FrontEndMasters will help, A LOT.
I didn't bug enough people to collaborate / generally ask questions. Thankfully (Thank the Lord, Stackoverflow question restrictions were making me CRAZY!) sites like hashnode.com and spectrum.chat came to be.
There are a lot of things that I'm still at the level of a rookie . I realised this from this Alex Russell 's answer.