Some time ago I used to do competitive programming a lot, but unfortunately I didn't do it a very long time. Now, after the break, I realized that cp is the most interesting thing in my life and want to develop this skill a lot and reach at least 1400 rating by this winter. Please say which topics I need to know and what ranking I need to have on the contest to reach this goal. And please sorry for my poor English.
Try to learn and train the basics first, like:
Make your own daily targets (like, minimum number of problems solved per day)
I did those things when I was grey, and it worked for me
What about an expert? :D
It is same for reaching experts
To reach a 1300-1400 rating you don't need to learn any new topic select the difficulty level from 1200-1400 and try to solve as many problems as you can until you won't reach a 1400 rating.
I want to answer your question but I don't know how I got to specialist