Found a link to a good formula on Robert-Reinder Nederhoed's weblog for thinking about your career development
career = learning_effort * time + natural_gifts
You can't do anything about your natural gifts and your time is the same as everyone else's. What makes the difference is the how much you learn.
According to the article, the best way to learn constantly and consistently is to explicitly learn from your mistakes.
My name is Reinout van Rees and I program in Python, I live in the Netherlands, I cycle recumbent bikes and I have a model railway.
Most of my website content is in my weblog. You can keep up to date by subscribing to the automatic feeds (for instance with Google reader):