I basically started learning Vim because.. well it was a hipster thing. The first two years, I really did not know how to actually learn it. All I would do is enter insert mode, move around with arrows and ":wq". But then after 6 months, I started with basic commands, like "55gg" to move to the 55th line etc, "G" to the last line and "gg" to the first line. Then came buffers, I started opening multiple files and started using minibufexplorer(my entry point into plugins). This went on for another 6 months. Next came actions and boy oh boy, I became the hipster vim user in college. While editing CSV files(like deleting all instances of a particular row having text "abc"), I used Vim instead of awk/sed just because I wanted to learn more. Fast forward a year, I call myself a basic vimmer and superior to others at my workplace by just knowing search, moving around, actions, buffers, a cool autocomplete plugin and other plugins here and there.

Throughout the learning process one thing I observed was that, its just not enough to read about a cool article about Vim and leave it there. I would keep repeating the sequence of actions mentioned in the article atleast ten times every day and would find some usage for it during programming. I would intentionally force myself to use it, until at some point, the action I just learnt magically comes in as a replacement for a dumb action I was about to do. At that point I would know I've mastered it.