You must learn to teach yourself new things.
Everyone has a different thought process, what works for person A might not be the same for person B. One individual might find it easier to remember information by drawing representations of what he is learning, another one might just read about a subject several times and successfully retain the information.
What I mean by the previous statements is that there are several ways to learn a subject and you must find what works better for you, it is not easy and it takes a lot of insight but once you discover the method that best helps you save the info you want it will be greatly rewarding for you in the long-run.
The programming world is constantly evolving, new languages and technologies are being developed every day and a successful programmer must be able to stay on track and keep up the pace with the rest of the world. This can only be achieved by being able to teach yourself about all those new developments, it wouldn't be efficient if you had to go back to college or where you got your basics from every time you needed to learn something new.
Math (just not like you imagine).
Mathematics is a very stigmatized subject among most scholars from a very young age, everyone is told that math is hard and that it won't be useful for you once you finish school. Truth is you actually use it, just not like you think you would.
The most important thing that math will teach you is how a logical process works, and this is basically the core of programming. The logic you need can be developed beforehand by studying a little math and getting your logic trained, one of the mos useful mathematics ramifications you will use while you program is 'dicrete math'.
Discrete mathematics is the study of logical structures, combinations and graphs. This is applied in every code or program you can find, it is just written in different ways depending on the language you choose to learn and is not something horribly hard to learn. You just need to pay attention.
The example above is just a small tip to help you dig into the logical world and you won't believe how useful it will be later on, trust me.
Self-motivation is precious.
A programmer will hit walls often, specially when you start. You will find yourself in situations where you have a task and absolutely no clue on how to solve it which will make you question if this is the right path to follow. This is where your ability to set the right mindset comes into play.
Your mind and the people you surround yourself with will play a huge roll into your development. Listening to mindfulness podcasts, reading on emotional intelligence and paying attention to what makes you feel a certain way is amazingly useful not only for your programming career but for your life in general.
A personal favorite of mine is to dig around a little bit in iVoox (a podcast app) and find podcasts on mindfulness and well-being. As common as it sounds a podcast is great way to learn new things and human psychology is not as simple as you imagine, there will be times you hear something in them that will make you go "oh, I really hadn't noticed that before" even though it is something you do often at a subconscious level.
This is very valuable at a greater level in your life and not only when you feel frustrated while you program.
Whiteboard!
It is often difficult to get your thoughts in order and I have found that the best way to do so is to whiteboard, in case there is no whiteboard around a good old pen+paper combo will work just as well. The important thing here is to start writing down your ideas so you can arrange them easier. The hardest part of programming is getting the logic part right, once you accomplish this it will be much simpler for you to start coding since you will have a path to follow. As they say: "when you fail to plan, you are planning to fail".
If you follow these steps you will have a little advantage when you start walking your programming path, these are things that will help you not get caught off-guard. I think everyone has something to share based on their experiences and here is my grain of sand for you.
Have a good one!
S.
