More
advice, if you want it: Start with small boats. As noted, everything you do has makes an immediate difference - you either go faster, slower, or tip over. IMHO, you will learn more on a
dinghy in a month than you will on a larger
boat in a year.
And while ordered
sailing lessons are great, you will learn it even faster if you join any sort of
dinghy fleet which requires two or more crew, and perhaps crew on a few of their races. Again IMHO, newbies can cram years of trial-and-error into a few months (perhaps a season) of
racing dinghies with experienced sailors. You will not only witness boats being sailed efficiently, you will also have every nuance of the process explained to you.
As you move to bigger boats, again - sail with other people on different boats. During the summer, pretty much every yacht club in existence has low-key
beer can races in the early evenings. And people are always looking for crew, experienced or otherwise. So just show up and you'll get rides. Although there is some expense involved in joining a yacht club, it's another excellent way to get rides and talk with people who share your passion and for the most part, love to share their knowledge with you.
Local
singlehanding is not a big deal. Lots of people do it. Solo sailing across oceans is another matter, of course. But a lot of that is in setting the
boat up before it ever leaves the
dock.
I know a lot of people on this forum don't
race and never plan to. And undoubtedly, many of them are great sailors. I'm just saying that
racing is an excellent way to become a better sailor.