How I Solved My 300th Problem on Codeforces

I remember the exact moment I solved my first problem on Codeforces. It was a simple A-level problem — check if a number is even or odd, essentially. I submitted it, saw the green Accepted , and felt like I'd just cracked a bank vault. 500 problems later, that feeling hasn't gone away. It's just harder to earn. This post isn't a tutorial. It's an honest reflection on what the journey from 0 → 500 actually looked like — the patterns I noticed, the walls I kept hitting, and what eventually broke through them. The First 100: Enthusiasm Over Everything The first hundred problems were pure momentum. I was solving easy A and B level problems, mostly brute force, occasionally stumbling into greedy. Every acceptance felt like a win. What I got wrong here: I was chasing count, not depth. I'd solve a problem, see Accepted, and immediately move on. I never asked why it worked. I never tried to find a cleaner solution. I never read the editorial after solving. That came back to bite me around prob