Competitive programming is like a competitive sport. You need to practice a lot to excel at it. The best ones have been training consistently for years.

It's a humbling experience for anyone who thinks he or she is a good programmer. I remember when I tried topcoder for the first time. I thought it would be easy to move through the ranks and it turned out to be much harder than expected.

However, it's an extremely specific type of programming that in my opinion don't reflect real life programming aptitudes.

I think I learned two important lessons though. Be confident your solution is correct before starting coding it, and don't debug but write correct programs instead. It's easier said than done, but a little discipline can help a lot.