i started learning by trail and error and got me nowhere fast and i have always been very creative since a very young age. Maya is not a user friendly programme. I just spent hours and hourse eveyr day til i got the hang of it.
Find out the the industry pipeline first (if you dont know it already). Thats important when starting out. and unless, like me ur not at uni, find something u enjoy, (i.e modelling or animation or creating 3D environments) and stick to it. Then type in tutorials for the specific path u wanna go down in google, and just learn learn learn
Theres a huge scope in animation and not just animation itself...there is:...
modelling
animation
dynamics
effects
cloth and fur specialists
fluid specialists....and plenty more
good luck
those who succeed are only the failures that never gave up.
https://www.vimeo.com/7080130