How To Know I’m On the Right Track?

Heya, so I just recently picked up Champions a few days ago. This is my first competitive Pokemon attempt, but I’ve passively watched competitive Pokemon for around a year’ish (just Wolfe) while I studied.

PLEASE forgive my ignorance as you read through this. I’m trying my best to be a sponge and absorb as much info as possible. I was basically a competitive Pokemon LARPer until a few days ago LOL

So anyway, I was really surprised when I climbed up to Ultra Ball 2 from Poke Ball 4 in one day. I don’t even know if that’s impressive or not.
But that was yesterday—TODAY, however, has been nothing but losses, losses, and more losses.

I have zero frame of reference for how good my results are actually, so I don’t know if I’m bad, average, or could potentially be a really good player. I really want to get good at this game, but it feels like I’m not really sure if I’m learning game correctly.

I also don’t know if my losses come from lack of matchup experience or mostly just poor decision-making.

- I copy teams I see online and pay attention to what the YouTuber says on how to use it, but I feel like I understand it only on a surface level.

- I don’t know how to review my losses or understand why exactly something works when it does work.

- How do I practice, theorycraft, etc.

- What resources do I have available to me other than the wiki(s)? I heard there are damage calcs and stuff like that.