It sounds stupid but something that really simplified git to me as an absolute beginner about a year ago was the fact that it doesn't exist on GitHub. Knowing that git was just something that sat in the folder on your filesystem and monitored changes took away the notion that there is some kind of sync between your remote and local. Working just on my own laptop made me realise how intuitive all the commands and strategies for solving problems were. Then came pushing, pulling etc between branches and it all just fell into place.