This is normal, happens all the time. You can easily scrub it with some stainless cleaner on a paper towel after cooking. It's way easier to just maintain it after cooking each time instead of having to deep clean every once in a while.
You can do a couple of things to dry the meat (in the case of steaks).
Remove it from the packaging well before cooking and pat dry, then cover in a layer of coarse salt and leave it uncovered with the salt on in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then take it out of the fridge an hour or so before cooking, wipe salt off and pat dry again if needed.
You can look into dry brining steaks for some more info.
Also don't use olive oil for this, use a neutral oil which can tolerate high heat, or even better clarified butter specifically for steaks, then you'll get rid of the splattering (from the oil/butter that is at least, there is no way around the water coming out of some types of food).
Turning down the heat or not is a matter of preference, and how hot your stove gets. Don't heat it for 2 minutes on the highest setting, but thoroughly heat it on a medium setting (4 of 9 using induction) for a minute or 4 and then increase to medium/high (7.5 of 9 using induction) for another couple of minutes.
Look into what's called the Leidenfrost effect to determine if the temperature is right when getting the hang of this.
If you buy supermarket thin cut steaks (< 2.5cm thick) and want medium rare, you don't have to lower the heat at all probably.
What could also be interesting to look into is doing what's called a reverse sear. A different way of cooking steaks.