I just read this post from Justin Etheredge about strategies for becoming a better developer:
CodeThinked | What is your strategy for becoming a better developer?
Self improvement and mentoring others to improve is one of my strongest passions right now. I think that Justin's two recommendations would also be my first recommendations for being a better developer. These are "Emulate" and "Get Involved". I'd also like to add "Read" and "Stretch".
Read. This pertains to blogs, articles, and books. Subscribe to RSS feeds, magazines and commit to a reading list. These resources are extremely valuable in extending your breadth and depth in a particular technology. I commit at least 1 hour of my day to reading interesting things. Most of the time, they have nothing to do with my exact job at hand but at the very least gives me perspective into successful people's habits. CodeThinked is one of over 100 blogs that I subscribe to. One tip here: Actually SUBSCRIBE! Here are some instructions by Jeff Blankenburg. This will create a virtual Todo list that you can follow. If you don't subscribe it's very easy to let your day job get in the way of investing in your profession.
Stretch. By this I mean set goals that push the limits of your comfort. One area of comfort that I was not ready to move into yet was speaking publicly. When I was younger, I had a severe stuttering problem. It was difficult for me to hold conversations with people; even those close to me. Through two years of speech therapy sessions and some significant confidence boosting activities, I overcame that shortcoming and was able to hold conversations and even group discussions occasionally. It was a big stretch goal of mine to give a public presentation a few weeks ago at the Kentucky Day of .Net. But it was an enormous growth experience. Find those things that you have no comfort with and become comfortable. Specific to programming: if you are a .Net developer, check out f# and become proficient. Learn some Ruby well enough to share it with others.
Continue this list of recommendations and extend Justin Etheredge's non-meme.