1)Learn the basics properly: Get your OOP (Object oriented Programming )concepts right.
2) Practice: Practicing what you learn is most important and one cannot achieve goal of being a good programmer without practicing.
3) Learn to share : Sharing is the most important aspect of programmers.
5)Must learn: XML, HTML, JavaScript or any other scripting language, Ajax, SQL. This are the few basic things.
6)Track: After learning Basics and terminologies , choose just one platform. Programming languages are in vast numbers, Java, c#, C++, perl, PHP, ruby etc.
For more details you can check my Blog.
Any help you want regarding which books to refer, which are the good institutes to start out, ask me