If you're earning breaks, you're making progress. If you aren't earning breaks, you aren't. With that said, you won't be making much progress the first 9 days or so (don't worry if it takes you a few days longer than that). During that time, as long as you're getting 1EE from each Chosen each day, you're doing fine. 1EE requires only 200 Trauma of the same type. During this time, you probably shouldn't use EE on summoning Commanders. It's possible to use a Commander and come out energy-positive during this phase, but it kind of requires knowing what you're doing in a way a new player won't.
Your ability to progress depends on setting up long surrounds where you're hitting all 4 circumstances and traumas. Basically, this happens when you can summon a Commander with at least 4 turns and 2 captures (costing 5EE, hence the green guide text). Until then, continue collecting EE and buying all the 1-2EE upgrades.
Once you've got the ability to summon a 5EE commander, you'll need to understand how to actually play the game. There are lost of posts here about how to understand multipliers so you can get T1 and T2 breaks. Here's mine. Others will probably be along to link theirs--this is a friendly thread and there's been lots of advice posted.
