I hit a number of walls professionally, interviewed more ambitiously (and unsuccessfully), and in general discovered the delineation between my perceived and actual values. It was more "look at me doing what people go to school for and make careers out of just because I can" novelty instead of realizing what kind of role I was serving, understanding my market, and trying to have good business sense. I thought of what I did as a series of problems to solve for cash instead of a mutual relationship, and I was just good at getting my foot in the door. Pretty obvious mistakes, really.

Even more generally, I left my comfort zone and put my experience to the test against people with either a lot more resources and education. I either was unable to complete these larger scale jobs, wasn't able to negotiate effectively or else let them run all over me with pay or feature creep, or had to be able to say (read: admit) I couldn't actually do or understand the work as I was.