Downs of having a bad rating

Play long games

"experimenting"

I wonder what you mean by that?

if you mean that you simply guess when presented with a tricky  and difficult position- yes that will reduce your rating and become a bad habit that will make it harder to improve

on the other hand;  changing openings rapidly and the like isn't really a big deal (IMHO).  some openings are better than others- but seeing alot of openings , can be good for the future; even if your rating is a little less because of it...

I had to lose thousands of games before I became a half-decent player. I learned far more from losing a game than I ever learned by winning one.

One thing that I did that I believed helped me a lot was playing the computer.  Start on the lowest level and after ever game,  have it analyzed and review the results.  Play a lot of games against the computer to learn some of the basics and do tactics.  Then when you have a better feel for the game, do what the poster above said, and play longer games.  Don't bother with quicker games.  I made that mistake at first.