I just recently got my first bike with gears. I googled and from what I found it seems that I have stem shifters on it.

I understand that these are not optimal, but it's what I have for now.

I took her out for 27 miles yesterday and worked on learning to shift gears, but still not sure if I'm doing this right and I don't really want to strip my gears by not doing this correctly.

I am humbly asking for advice on how to use these correctly.