Programming might not be a piece of cake, don’t bother. It is not too tough also. Its all about your enthusiasm, interest and the ability to learn. The more you learn, the more you will feel comfortable with programming. There are a lot of recipies which makes your job easier. Here you will get some of them.
Develop your interest in programming, and do it because it is fun. Do the programming as you are playing and enjoying while writing each line of code. Be in contact with other programmers and discuss your problems with them. Be involved in discussion even if you know the thing; you may get some better approach to solve the problem.
Learning through books is not sufficient at all. Do Programming. No technology has been ever learnt without trying the hands at it. Try to solve a lot of exercises and programming problems. But don’t jump directly to coding without having proper knowledge of the things. Solving some real world problem will boost up your confidence. To put it more technically, “the maximal level of performance for individuals in a given domain is not attained automatically as a function of extended experience, but the level of performance can be increased even by highly experienced individuals as a result of deliberate efforts to improve.” and “the most effective learning requires a well-defined task with an appropriate difficulty level for the particular individual, informative feedback, and opportunities for repetition and corrections of errors.” The book Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics, and Culture in Everyday Life is an interesting reference for this viewpoint.
Work on projects in group with other programmers. Try to get how others are applying logic to solve problems. Improve your logic skills as logic is more important than anything else. Work on projects after other programmers. Be involved in understanding a program written by someone else. See what it takes to understand and fix it when the original programmers are not around. Think about how to design your programs to make it easier for those who will maintain it after you.
Even if you are writing a very simple code, try to get it whether your code is optimised or not. Always try to reduce the memory usage and processing time.
Always follow the coding standards. Your code should be well indented and proper commenting should be there for every part of your code. I prefer to use hungarian notation.
Wishing you all the best and Sweet Programming!!