Four mistakes I’ve made on Steemit so far.

I heard about Steemit last month from my friend, @mr-green. He told me about this incredible platform that is just like Facebook, only better. You get paid for crating posts, as well as liking and commenting on other people’s posts. How awesome is that?! He said it was a steady source of livelihood for him and that it actually worked.

Now, I’ve heard of, and been on several platform where you’re promised all sorts of things, but most often, these sites were either just not accepting people from my country, or were just not...paying. (and that is one of the reasons I love Steemit so much, its literally the most inclusive platform, and everyone is welcome, no matter the geographical location or any other differences) So at first as you would imagine, I was skeptical. But when he showed me his account balance and showed me the cash he’d actually withdrawn from this platform, I was blown away. It actually worked! All I needed to do was write content that people liked like and comment, just like on Facebook, and I’d be rich! Instantly! Lol. How silly of me, I was soooo wrong, because after weeks of being on the platform, I still hadn’t made my first dollar.

Progressively, I’m discovering the reasons why I wasn’t getting as much as I’d hoped for from Steemit; the mistakes I’ve made on Steemit so far, and I’m going to be sharing them here, for the benefit of other newbies on Steemit like me, so they don’t make the same mistakes.

**Writing for the wrong reasons.

As you can already imagine, initially my main objective of getting on Steemit was to make money. Fast. And that’s the problem. Now, don’t get me wrong, having goals and ambitions is a good thing, a great thing actually. I know a guy on Steemit who has a monthly goal of 500 dollars and every month he makes sure he gets it. Goals get you to work hard and put in your best. But then, when you set a goal that is all about the money, you tend to wanna do everything and anything, just to get the money. This could work in other situations, but on a platform like Steemit, where people value originality and authentic content, money might blur your vision. That’s exactly what happened to me. I was so anxious to make the money that I forgot about my authentic self, the things I really wanted to write about, original stuff, and started just re-steeming the “hot” stories which I had zero interest in. If I saw a new story with potential, you know, those topics that always hit the jackpot, like crypto currencies, and block chain technology and popular topics like, that, I would just re-steem and up-vote them, hoping to make money from them when they eventually went viral. True I did get a little steem from them. But I’d missed the point completely. Why tag on the tail of someone else’s original content, when I could write my own original stories? Write things that resounded true to me, on what was authentic and I actually was interested in, and loved sharing?
“Be true to yourself and the universe will conspire to give you the up-votes you want.” – Me, 2018
(Ok, I just made up a quote and quoted myself on my own post. Sick!)

**Comparing with others.

I wanted to be just like mr green, making lots of money. But what I didn’t realize was that he has been active on the platform for waaay longer than I had. A year and a couple of months precisely. And here I was, comparing my two week account to his. Thinking about it now is actually hilarious! Let’s all take a moment to laugh at my stupidity.

Seriously though, it takes time to achieve anything great, whether its winning a beauty pageant ( lol, story for another day), or starting a successful business, or in this case, having a winning account on Steemit. The chances of loosing motivation and getting depressed when you compare yourself to other people who are much better than you are quite high. The only reason these people are better at what they do than you is because they’ve failed countless times, and learned from their mistakes. These people have taken time and effort and consistency to get where they are. You really want to be consistent on your Steemit posts. Don’t be afraid to fail, just do it! Over and over and over again. You’ll get better eventually. (So I’ve heard). And that brings me to my next point: consistency

**Being inconsistent

@mr-green noticed my inconsistency and decided to help me be better. Yeah, I know, he’s an awesome guy and a great leader. His work with young people like @fonirene at @ecoDesigns is so inspiring. You could check it out sometime.
I’ve learned from him that having a writing plan helps tremendously. Like a lot. Knowing exactly what you’ll be writing about before time helps you gather your thoughts, ideas and do your research; So that you seamlessly write a remarkable post.
The value of consistency in writing can’t be overstated, frankly. Not only does it show the people who have interest in what you write that you are serious about what you’re doing, and thus earn their respect(and up-votes), but it helps you to continuously learn and grow, and become better at what you’re doing. I sure as hell I’m learning from that mistake!

** Not taking time to gather my thoughts.

If you read my sham of an introductory post, you’ll realize I was in quite a rush to finally have a first post on Steemit, after about a week of signing up and having a starter’s fright. I didn’t take my time to gather my thoughts, and present them in a comprehensive manner. Frankly, they were all over the place. You can check it out yourself here and I would be entirely grateful for any more tips and suggestions from you on how to be a better Steemian, in the comment section. Namaste. Also, I’m grateful for @philipkavan Who after reading my post, encouraged me and gave me some very useful tips on how to make it on Steemit. I really do appreciate it man.
I’ve learned that quality is more important than quantity on Steemit. Taking three hours to write a short beautiful post that people can relate to, learn something from, and be entertained at the same time will make you stand out. I’ve learned that you don’t want to rush things over when you’re writing quality content. Again, having a plan and knowing exactly what you want to write about is of great help.

So, there are my mistakes, and the good thing about mistakes is when we make them, we learn from them. I hope you’ve learned something from mine which hopefully, would make you a better Steemian. I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on the comment section.

Stay Awesome!