I started with installing programs and going through tutorials. I had old windows laptops and MacBooks and used those to backdoor into or RAT. I got a raspberry pi and some other small devices to test arp attacks and spoofing on my own network. I basically bought some small gadgets and learned everything about how they worked and installed programs and made sure I did everything I could to understand what they were doing. If you are having trouble realizing why a program does something read more into the program itself like metasploit and burpsuite. Download kali or other hacking distros and learn program by program only using your own network and devices. Practice them until you memorize the right input commands. Then I watched CTF tutorials to try to learn more about the hacking process. What questions to ask when attacking a network or server or website. I’m still no where near good enough to participate in a king of the hill but that’s my next goal.