My quest for lucidity

Hello all!

I am an 18 years old male who is fascinated by the concept of lucid dreaming and would really like to be able to experience it.
I generally have a hard/long time falling asleep, takes at least ~30 minutes (sometimes much more), and noises, lights make it much harder for me.

Anyway, that's what I'm going to try :
-Many reality checks throughout the day, say around each 10 minutes. I combine about 4 of them, Is that alright or too much? Should I do them together or only one each ten minutes? When I do a reality check, should I tell myself that I am dreaming and that the reality check's purpose is to cancel that out (as someone on the web suggested), or should I simply ask myself if everything is normal and have the check try to approve/cancel that out?
-When I go to sleep, I just think a lot about how I would like to have a lucid dream, and say to myself that I will have one and remember it many times. I try to do this until I am asleep.

Since my pretty "sucky" sleeping profile, I will not attempt waking up on purpose during the night.

I will also start improving my dream recall (with a journal, among the rest) along with trying to achieve a LD.

Can anyone review and suggest improvements for my "road to LD"?
Thanks a lot for any help!

EDIT: I have some Valerian extract (mild sedative), which when used produces very vivid, real-like feeling and easily rememberable dreams. Could this help in order to achieve a lucid dream?

Remedying your sleep profile should be your first concern. Be sure to avoid stimulants (caffeine, sugar) a few hours before bed. Thirty minutes before bed you should restrict yourself from busy activities and physical exercise. Go to bed at the same time every night, and wake up at the same time every morning. Wear a sleep mask and earplugs to deal with the external stimulus.

Improving your dream recall should be your next focus. Building reliable and personalized induction techniques depends on the patterns you find in your dreaming. Also, if you do have a lucid dream, you want to make sure you remember it!

In my opinion, you are performing too many reality checks. I recommend 10 per day, but it should depend on how many times you honestly doubt you are awake. When do lucid dreamers doubt when they're awake? When they encounter dream signs--odd situations/people/emotions they often encounter in their dreams. But you won't know what these are, unless you keep a journal and have good recall.

Good luck, welcome to Dreamviews!