Learning to play guitar is something that you will need to think of as a long term effort and isn't something that you can do in an evening, a week or even a month. It requires a variety of skills that take both time and effort to master. The most effective way to learn is to take lessons with a teacher or work with a more experienced friend who can show you how they learned. It's possible to teach yourself with a book but will take a lot of diligence to practice and improve over time. Particularly with a steel string guitar, starting out can be depressing because it can be difficult to even make a clear note on the guitar!

Henckels Knife Set

You will need to learn to press the string to the fret in just the right way, and develop a lot of finger and hand strength that people who don't play guitar generally don't have. The key is perseverance and realizing that no one else had it much easier than you. It may take a while to be able to contort your hands to make a chord and even longer to get that chord to reliably ring clear and without any buzzing or muffled notes. Once you have mastered this, you can start to improve your strumming ability with your right hand. This also doesn't necessary come naturally and takes practice. After mastering the basics, you can then start to learn more advanced skills like finger style work or lead guitar. Without the basics and foundation, it's very hard to jump straight to more advanced techniques without frustration.