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Successfully learning how to play guitar is within the grasp of most people, yet many beginners give up too quickly. Frequently, quitting beginners will blame their lack of time to practice and that playing hurts their fingers. The problem is that they just don't practice enough. This page can't give you more time to practice, but it will show you how to successfully become an adequate guitar player without the expense of paid instruction.

Steps

1
Research and choose instruction websites online. The internet has hundreds of web sites that even offer "free" lessons, most of which are very well designed and can certainly be applied to your practice routine. Your questions are more likely to be answered in more depth this way.
2
Learn to distinguish between better musicians and worse ones. If you are about as good as your favorite musician after playing guitar for a couple weeks, step up your taste a notch instead of adding to "mediocre musician" status quo and retiring with what you briefly learned.
3
Study the physical instrument itself, first. Learn the names and functions of the guitar parts, and how they work together to make sounds. A half hour spent on this basic understanding will be repaid many times over throughout your learning and playing time.
4
Get the optimal sound and performance by learning how sound is emitted from the guitar, how tension affects the strings, and how sound differs with increasing the size and length of the strings.
5
Teach yourself as many different ways to play a chord as you can. For instance, there are 10 different fret hand positions from which to play the C chord. Obviously, go for a 'perfect' open C chord first, but the more ways you know to play a chord, the more flexibility you'll have in moving from one chord to another. This can also come in handy if you decide to try composing new music.
6
Practice daily (5 out of 7 days minimum) for at least a half hour. If you want to learn quickly, you must force-feed your brain with guitar. This entails learning how to have a good ear for changes in sound/pitch/intonation, comfortably positioning your body (including leg, back, shoulder and arm positions), strum-hand coordination and technique, fret hand coordination and technique, and most importantly, fret hand muscle memory.
7
Practice the chords and hand positions silently while watching TV or talking to a friend. Learning fret hand muscle memory is much more difficult than learning strum hand muscle memory (excluding finger picking). You don't have to use your other hand at all, just go over the different chords over and over. Television or a conversation will help you avoid looking down at your hands too much. However, when learning the chord positions you should study your fingers intently - make sure you get the chord position correct so that your muscle memory is correct. Over time, look at your fingers less often, but still check that you have achieved the correct postion. Over time your confidence in your finger position for chords will grow and you will not have to look so often.
8
Press down on the strings as hard as you would if actually playing, to build up calluses on your fingertips. This will be painful, and will make your fingers hurt. Once you develop calluses though, the pain you once felt will surprisingly disappear. The length of time this takes is up to you. The more you practice, the faster it will happen. There is also a liquid callus building product called Rock-Tips which really helps through those first few painful months.
9
Learn barre chords along with open chords. Don't skip barre chords simply because they're difficult. As with developing calluses, the more you play the easier it will become. Barring a chord is almost entirely dependent upon the strength in your fret hand.
10
Build up the muscles in your fret hand by repeatedly squeezing a tennis ball or similar object for 5 minutes, a few times a day. (Be careful though, this can lead to Repetitive Stress Syndrome)
11
Allow yourself to become frustrated. It's inevitable. It's normal. That chord you've been trying to voice cleanly for the past few days, or even weeks, will in time sound clear and distinct. Keep working at it and before you know it, just strumming along, you'll try again to voice that chord perfectly and will do so.
12
Take your guitar every where you go if you'll be sitting, waiting, watching, etc. Having your guitar with you in those situations will promote your playing ability when starting out. It's also helpful when establishing calluses. Always have your guitar with you so you can practice pressing down the strings using proper fret hand chord formation.
13
Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice makes perfect isn't just some old wives' tale. When practicing, strive for quality; if you practice sloppily you'll be making bad habits permanent. A better aphorism in fact might be, "Practice makes permanent." Also, just as weight-training athletes rotate their exercises, focusing on one part of the body one day, it's possible to practice passages focusing on different aspects - tone, smoothness, speed, accuracy. By concentrating on different practice facets of the music separately, you can hone your skills and improve your overall playing!
14
Play along with CD versions of songs you like. The CD player is a great tool for music learners because it is easy to 'rewind' and repeat even very small pieces of a song again and again until you figure out exactly how to do that riff you really like. Just hold down the 'fast rewind' button and watch the number counter (the number counts the number of seconds of music). Make a mental note of the seconds-count where the riff begins. Then you will be able to easily backtrack again and again to your start point.
15
Start to play songs! There are two ways to read guitar music. One technique is called sheet music and the other one is called tab.
16
You can get free guitar lessons online! Simply search Google for "Free Online Guitar Lesson" and also search in the Video section "guitar genre:EDUCATIONAL"
17
Play more than one type of guitar. Start learning the bass, play the classical guitar, play the tenor guitar, play the electric guitar. You will get incorporated with the sounds of the different guitars.
18
Hang out in campus and see other people who know how to play bass guitar, keyboards and drums. Then, Jam.

Tips

If you have a friend who is an experienced guitarist, try to get together with him/her once a week to jam together. Even though he/she is much better, you will only decrease the time it normally takes to learn guitar by just playing next to them, watching and learning how they play.
Collect tablature from many different artists. You'll find free tabs on the internet with probably about a 99% chance of finding the correct tab within the first page of listed results. Type the name of the song, artist and the words "guitar tab" in a search window. You'll have many choices. No matter what genre of music the songs are, if you enjoy playing them, then play them.
If you have an audio-editing program such as GarageBand or Audacity, you can select the certain part of the song you're working on to play JUST that part. It will help your learning tremendously.
Pay a little extra for a good guitar. If you're looking to buy your first guitar, but aren't sure you'll like playing or have time to practice, buy an inexpensive one. Then if you decide to stay with it, you can upgrade to a more expensive one without going over your budget. Make sure it isn't too 'cheap,' however. Some guitars may have undesirable qualities that may deter you from enjoying playing while learning. Things like a decent action (distance between strings and fretboard) are important to consider. If it's too high, you will be required to press down harder on the strings to get a good sound causing excess pain in your fingertips and excess frustration.
Take notes about how you feel and how well you play every time you practice. If you practice daily, you'll see a big difference each day.
It's an easy thing to teach yourself the basics of guitar playing as described above. There will come a point however, if you stick with playing, when you'll need the experience and knowledge of a professional instructor. This wikiHow-to is in no way suggesting that there's no use for instructors. It's simply a guide to get started.
If you are left handed then you need to think particularly carefully when choosing a guitar. A lefty guitar will probably feel more natural to you - and could be the right choice. However if you can bring yourself to learn on a right handed instrument you will have a much greater range to choose from, will be able to share guitars with other players and won't have to mentally flip over the chord positions you see or read to match your fretboard. Both hands need to be doing quite precise work after all. You want to avoid choosing one type and then regretting your choice.
Sing along! - or try to accompany somebody else singing or playing. It will help your pacing, rhythm and listening. If you are working with other guitars try to get away from just copying what they are doing.
Learn several ways of checking you are playing in tune and of tuning. It can take a while to develop an ear for what is right.
Try to change your strings regularly - certainly once a month if you are practicing regularly each day. You will be amazed by what an improvement it can make to the sound.
Never put nylon classical strings on a steel string guitar, nor vice versa. They are not interchangeable. However, if you have a steel string acoustic, you can use "silk & steel" strings on the guitar until your fingers are tough enough to use the steel strings, because they are easier on your fingers. Note that the sound will be more subdued and less brilliant.
Try recording your practice sessions in order to track your progress. While you may not notice an immediate difference, you may find it surprising the progress you have made in a fairly short period of time.
Rather than practicing in longer and less frequent sessions, try practicing in shorter more frequent sessions. Your brain is able to memorize chords and patterns faster this way and it will also make it easier on your fingers when you are first starting.
Learn the Banjo, with only four string it's a lot more mapped out and simpler.

Warnings

To prevent your fret hand from injury, keep your calluses in check. Take a buffer board to your fingertips once or twice a week. Buffing and filing your calluses IS important. Over time the outermost layer of skin will begin to peel. It's imperative at that time to buff the callous smooth, or you risk getting a string caught in an open groove of your callous when changing chords.
Before buying, play as many different guitars as you can at large specialty guitar stores. These large stores have hundreds of guitars to try, and you can pick the one that suits you the best. Don't feel pressured to buy something for lack of choice, pushy sales people, or being too embarrassed to try playing in front of people.
Don't be embarrassed to play in front of other, more accomplished guitarists. They were once at your level of skill, and the majority of them remember what it was like.
Be very aware of the angle of your left wrist. Since you're teaching yourself, you won't have a teacher telling you you're holding your wrist wrong, but if you have it bent too much, you can do serious damage to yourself. Keep it straight! If you're not sure about it, show your technique to someone experienced, and ask about your wrist position.
Playing the guitar can make your fingers sore. You can put some ice in a bowl of water and soak your fingertips for a minute or run just run cold water over your fingertips. This will prevent blisters and will speed up building your calluses. Be sure to allow some time after soaking your hands before playing again.
Buy an electric guitar tuner, you'll save yourself many packs of strings and be careful when tuning, especially the first string

Reference and adaptation from :http://www.wikihow.com/Rapidly-Learn-to-Play-the-Acoustic-Guitar-Yourself