There is a skill to setting yourself up to learn well. In fact, for any given body of knowledge, learning that body of knowledge is its own skill. It is very hard to teach yourself 'Advanced X' if you don't know 'Basic X' because without knowing the basics, you run into walls and don't even know the outline of what a solution would look like.

> You'll get there. Don't worry about the details.

Actually, if you don't actively seek out well-written resources and possible-to-set-up environments, you won't. You'll run out of time because you have to go to the job that pays your rent. You'll get stuck and distracted because you are trying to sleep-deprive yourself in order to buy more time (doesn't work. learning well requires sleep.)

Finding a well-written resource like Think Python[1] has a real and significant impact on someone's ability to learn to program alongside all the other stressors of life.

So what happens after a person is done with introductory resources. Are they stuck at that level? No. They now have a map of the terrain of all the things they don't know and they could teach themselves. They have become better at teaching themselves more things in that domain.

[1] http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english3e/