Hello Codeforces Community,

I’ve been actively participating on Codeforces for almost a year now. During this time, I’ve solved over 1000 problems, with around 100 of them in the rating range [800, 1700]. I even created this account specifically to grind from the very beginning and build up my skills from scratch.

Despite all the effort, I feel like my progress has hit a wall—especially in contests.

What’s more discouraging is that my contest performance is noticeably worse. For example, I still struggle to solve Div. 2 C problems during contests. Even though I spend time after contests analyzing problems, writing detailed notes with observations, math notations, and even trying to rigorously prove solutions, I often end up with wrong answers (WA) or fail to implement the ideas correctly.

This has left me wondering: What am I doing wrong? Despite the volume of problems I’ve practiced and the effort I put into understanding solutions, I don’t feel that improvement is reflecting in my contest performance.

I would truly appreciate any advice or insights from those who’ve experienced something similar or managed to overcome this kind of plateau. What should I change in my approach? How can I bridge the gap between understanding problems and actually solving them during contests?

Thank you in advance!

If you don’t have advice to offer, I kindly ask you not to downvote. I’m genuinely looking for help and trying to improve.