When you’re learning something new, it’s common and normal to make mistakes or even completely fail! Don’t set your expectations too high, and don’t take a failure too seriously when you’re just starting. Try again! Practice!
Set out 2 sticks of butter to soften. Get your tools and ingredients out (but keep the eggs in the fridge for now). In the medium mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: 2 ¼ cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.
In the larger mixing bowl, start combining the butter, 1 cup of brown sugar, and ½ cup of granulated sugar, and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract with a rubber spatula/wooden spoon. The fork may be useful for this step.
Once the mixture is thoroughly combined, with no/few clumps of unmixed sugar or butter, add in about a third of the flour mixture. Fold it in with the spatula/spoon until you can't see the white of the flour anymore. repeat with an egg, the second third of the flour mixture, the second egg, and and finally the last of the flour mixture. The final mixture should look very even, and feel kind of like peanut butter.
Don't worry, we didn't forget the chocolate chips. Mix in 2 cups of chocolate chips. It may be pretty tough to mix in all those chocolate chips evenly, but that's a sign you made the dough correctly!
Good Job! Making the dough is the hard part. Chill the dough in the fridge for at least 1 hour. If you chill it for 2+ hours, I recommend covering it with cling-wrap.
When the dough is done chilling and you're ready to start baking, preheat the oven to 350°F, get your baking sheet(s) ready and take out the cookie dough.
Wash and dry your hands and start making balls out of the dough. I recommend balls with a 1 or 1.5 inch diameter, but you could make any size you want, just be consistent. Small balls bake faster than big balls! Also, big balls use up your dough faster, so you could have size or you could have quantity. Give the balls a distance about twice or thrice their diameter from other balls or the edges of the baking sheet. Flatten them just a bit with the palm of your hand, (but don't flatten them completely into a cookie shape, the dough gets melty in the oven before it hardens).
Carefully put the cookies into the oven and bake for for 8 to 12 minutes. You can peek in or take them out once or twice to check them. They could take more than 15 minutes to be properly cooked if they're big. When you see some light browning along the edges they should be about done. Carefully take them out, holding the baking sheet with potholders! These should cool for at least 5-8 minutes, then be moved to a cooling rack or plate with a metal spatula.
If you have two or more baking sheets and want to be efficient, you can do multiple batches at a time, or altnerate between them.
Repeat the ball-making and baking until you're out of dough. Let your baking sheet(s) cool to a temperature comfortable to touch before loading them up again! Set the dough back in the fridge when you aren't making balls so it doesn't get your hands super greasy when you work with it! The first batch is usually the worst because it's the one that gets tested on, but you can learn from it!