What do you do beyond practice to improve yourself (Red Coders)?

Hi everyone, this is my first blog.

I have done competitive programming on and off in past few years, but never break the pupil barrier. Most of this time I was on job so didn't get much time after the work hours. I am trying to get back.

I always had this question about how some people are able to jump quickly through pupil -> specialist -> expert (and so on), and other people struggle to transcend these levels. I initially believed it might be because they have practiced more than me and know more pattern matching, it is a common answer.

But now I believe that practice might not be the only reason. There might be something specific about their thinking process and metacognition that makes them better at competitive programming. I want to ask this question to all the coders >= specialists, especially red coders.

Is it a different way of thinking about problems (when solving them)?
A strong ability to find invariants and generalise better?
More effective post-contest analysis?
A better method of learning from failures/mistakes?
A mental framework that help you improve rapidly?
Mathematical fundamentals that help you think logically? (not the trivial divide and conquer)

You can all drop your precious advice in this thread so others can enlightened. I want to understand the metacognition behind elite competitive programming.

Along with these questions, I want to share a list of resources that I have collected/found online. You can add/share your resources/blogs too for others to read.