Looking back at where I started vs where I am now, there's a list of things I wish someone had just told me. So here it is.
Google is a skill
Knowing how to search for the answer is genuinely half the job. Being able to take an error message or a vague problem and turn it into a search query that finds something useful — that's a skill you develop over time. Early on I used to give up if the first search didn't work. Now I know how to reformulate, how to pick out the relevant parts, how to find the actual documentation instead of the blog post summarising it.
Version numbers matter
I cannot tell you how many hours I wasted following tutorials that were for a different version of the thing I was using. Always check when something was written and what version it's targeting. A Next.js 12 tutorial and a Next.js 15 tutorial are practically different subjects.
Git early, git often
Start using Git from day one. Commit often. Write commit messages that actually describe what changed. I learned this the hard way by losing work I couldn't get back. Just use Git. Please.
It's supposed to be confusing at first
When you're new and something doesn't make sense, it's not because you're bad at this. It's because you don't have the context yet. The context builds up over time and things that were confusing start to click. This happens with every new language, every new framework, every new concept. The confusion is part of the process, not a sign you should stop.
Build things you actually care about
I learned more building one real project I cared about than I did from hours of following tutorials. The moment you're building something because you actually want it to exist, everything becomes more real. The problems you hit are real problems. The solutions you find actually stick.
Read other people's code
Open source exists. GitHub exists. There are millions of projects you can just… read. How do they structure things? How do they solve problems you've been thinking about? You pick up so much just from reading code written by people who are better than you.