Hello Codeforces community,

I've been doing competitive programming for almost four years now, starting in May 2022. Before that, I had no prior experience with programming. Despite that, my progress has been steady:

• Reached Pupil after 8-9 months
• Reached Specialist in August 2023
• Reached Expert in February 2024

Now it's February 2025, and despite practicing regularly, I haven't been able to stabilize in Expert. Sometimes I gain rating, sometimes I lose it, but overall, I feel stuck.

I know consistency is key, and I’m putting in the effort. But recently, I'm feeling confused about my practice approach. Am I solving the right problems? Am I missing something important?

Here's what my current training looks like:

• I solve problems from past Codeforces contests, mostly Div. 2 B/C/D and sometimes harder problems.
• I try to upsolve problems that I couldn’t solve during contests.
• I participate in most rated contests and also do Gym contests sometimes.
• Sometimes, I practice problems from diiferent platforms like LightOJ, CSES.

Despite all this, I don’t feel like I’m improving significantly. Sometimes, I solve a problem and feel like I just memorized a trick rather than truly learning something new.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice! Looking forward to learning from your experiences.

Thanks in advance!