Next steps of junior developer: how to maintain the growth

I am self-taught frontend developer. I do not have any formal education in this field apart from coding bootcamp. Pretty soon after finishing the bootcamp I landed my first job as a developer.

Fast-forward to present day - I recently celebrated 1 year on the job and things are going well. I am confident that this is the career I have always wanted and for the first time I have no intention of switching to something else.

During my first year I was focusing on building up my skills, getting confident with the basics, following best practises (that I previously had no idea about, if the code works it's fine isn't it? 😅). Obviously the learning curve was really steep and I did not really have to set up any specific goals for this period - the only goal was to learn as much as possible and deliver.

But now as the year has passed and I am getting more confident about my skills, I am wondering what should be my next goals. I know there is still so much to learn but where to even start? There is so many articles about how to break-in to the industry and become developer, but I did not find many good resources on how to level up from junior to something more.

One thing I could work on is building confidence in my knowledge.

As I did career switch into tech only couple years ago, the imposter syndrome hits hard sometimes. I want to be able not only to deliver results, but also properly explain my reasoning, defend my solutions and offer my point of view. I am lacking in this department and usually follow the senior's opinions, because I cannot properly express or gather my thoughts. Probably because I feel the gaps in my knowledge.

To compare this to something - it is like foreign language - I am able to use it, but I would probably not be able to properly explain and justify why I used past perfect tense either 😃 You know what I mean?

I saw this quote somewhere

explaining concepts helps to reinforce the knowledge

I think this could be a good thing to start with. I could start writing down some guides, or explanaitions about coding concepts that I struggle with, or I maybe do some mentoring for beginners. What do you think?

What did your career path looked like? Do you have any tips on how to continuously grow? How do you set up your career goals?