Welcome to steemit, Dan ! I share your mindset when it comes to working really hard, you will do very well if you keep at it on this sight.

Some tips:

1.When voting for other people's posts, wait for the post to be 30 min old or older, you will get the best out of curation that way as the posts continues to go up in value. Always comment something meaningful if you do, because then you can get votes on the comment as well. Reason I say "meaningful" is because there are some comment bots here and they just comment things on the line of "Nice post".(Not that you will get spammed with them)

2.Post everyday and be active/interactive, trust me, as you grow you will reap the benefits, at the least if you can't post, make it a routine to still upvote and comment.

1. If you do sorta "Educational posts" best tag you can use(along with the other tags that are related to what you talk about on the post) is;
   steemiteducation

Reason being is because I use it and people love learning new things on here, it will help you get a nice start because you can get votes from @curie and @steemiteducation which will be very beneficial towards you.

other then that, have fun !!! It will take some time but you will get there man :) Hello from South Africa by the way, Gave you a follow, keen to see what you post about.