how to get cracked
A lot of people want to get cracked but only a few know how. When I say "Cracked", I am, of course, referring to getting really good at stuff. A lot of people do stuff without ever getting good at it. The mechanic who works on my car has been working for years as a mechanic but he is still no good at it. I can also point out a lot of people who are the same, and there are some things I have been working on for some years too but I am no good at; CS/SE is not one of them.
Pay Attention
This might seem a minute reason but it is absolutely shocking how many people who go through life doing stuff without ever thinking critically about what they are doing. "Oh, this is how I was thought to do this" but have you ever thought about why you were taught to do things like this? Have you actually thought if there is a better way to do this? Maybe this algorithm is dated? Maybe this is not the best way to fix this bug?
Study your peers
What are they doing differently? why are they doing it this way when this is not the standard way to do it? What are the merits of their approach? What are the demerits of this approach? Are they just stupid? If they are not stupid, then what are their reasons for doing this?
Do the reading
Millions of papers and research are published every year relating to your field of study. How many have you read? How many have you written? If it is a paper that details a novel approach or has new insights, you should try to implement it yourself partially to see if the paper is bullshit and partially to gain experience in the approach as quickly as possible.
Move fast
You must always have a sense of urgency. Oh, you wanna bookmark this so you can read it later? I assure you, you will forget about it and your peers who did the reading will get cracked much faster than you. You must always try to move faster than your peers. Read faster, research faster.
Community
Who you follow on twitter, the type of feed you have on social media, the kind of coworkers you interact with, your closest friends must me people who are on the same journey as you. They must be able to encourage each other. There's no use for a peer group if you don't challenge each other.
Curiosity
You must always cultivate your curiosity for without it any of the above will just be a stressful endeavor. You must force yourself to care about what you work on, you must care about your work and its impacts, you must care about getting better. You need to be genuinely curious to get cracked.