What Skills Do You Need To Succeed On Steemit?

in #steemit7 years ago (edited)

In today's culture of instant gratification, it is more important than ever to have long-term goals and a plan to help you achieve the life you want to have.

The pursuit of instant gratification is so prevalent in our world today it seems a whole generation considers it the norm and the mere thought of delaying gratification for a long term vision or goal is a drag.

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What Is Instant Gratification?

Instant gratification is a habit where you forgo short-term pain that will eventually lead to long-term pleasure and instead indulge in short-term pleasure that might eventually lead to long-term pain. In other words, you find reasons (excuses) not to do something because of the pain it creates in the moment even though you know that this action is necessary to help you attain your long-term goals and objectives. credit

It's natural to want to avoid pain and the illusion of having everything we could ever want available 24/7 anytime we need it gives us a false sense of abundance and availability that makes it hard for many to focus on a goal that reaches beyond the present moment.

There is a pill for every ill, an app for every occasion, and instant remedy for every problem we could possibly imagine, or so it seems, and that leads people to a belief that they don't have to put much effort into an endeavor before seeing results.

Learning to delay one's gratification is a skill set that pays dividends for years to come and it can be learned.

In Daniel Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence - Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, there is a story of a study done over many years with hundreds of participants.

In the study involving a group of 4-year old children they placed a marshmallow on a plate in front of each child and left the room, but before they left they told each child they could eat the marshmallow now or wait until the adult returned before eating it and they would get two marshmallows.

Then they recorded the choice of each child. Over the years of each one of the participants lives, they observed a noticeable trend.

Those that opted to wait (delay their gratification) were much more likely to have a higher income, better relationships, and more meaningful lives.

The children that resisted the temptation were better able to cope with stress, more socially adept, and felt more personally empowered.

According to the researcher in charge, Walter Mischel; the study shows that “Goal-directed, self-imposed delay of gratification is the essence of emotional self-regulation.” credit

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Steemit Is Not About Instant Gratification

I see this played out all the time when listening to minnows struggle with getting a foothold on Steemit. They seem to equate the amount of work they do with the amount of rewards they "should" be entitled to.

The real world does not work that way.

In their famous book Rich Dad Poor Dad, by authors Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, they talk about the differences between rich and poor people as mainly a difference in the way they think.

95% of the population thinks in ways that trade their time for money so when a new Steemit user thinks that way and they get very little rewards for all the time they spend making their initial posts they feel it is not worth their time.

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This often leads them to give up before they can gain any momentum or a significant following. Coupled with a feeling of entitlement that comes from our "instant gratification" culture this mentality is a death toll to succeeding on this platform.

Many begin to complain which only serves to alienate them from the community and they eventually commit Steemicide and give up.

Why Successful Steemians Keep Saying Forget About The Money

How the world really works is money, or rewards, follow value. Valuable content and the attention of the community is the real currency of Steemit but only if it attracts attention.

People are busy and their attention is limited so it takes many moments of consistently putting valuable content in front of many eyeballs before rewards catch up to the value delivered.

That means to succeed on Steemit you have to be consistent and keep writing good posts and never give up. The honest truth is not everyone is going to do that or is even cut out to do so.

The cold hard fact is that 1% of the population are creators and the other 99% are consumers. That is the result of our consumer culture and why the people that create are the ones that make so much money.

The 1% rule has been studied and documented and states:

In Internet culture, the 1% rule is a rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Variants include the 1-9-90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio),[1] which states that in a collaborative website such as a wiki, 90% of the participants of a community only view content, 9% of the participants edit content, and 1% of the participants actively create new content. credit

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Now you know why media outlets make a lot of money because they actively create content that the rest of us pay to consume.

To really succeed on Steemit, especially if you are starting from scratch with no investment in Steem Power, you need to develop your content creation skills, have the ability to delay your gratification, and think like a business owner.

But not like your typical business owner that trades good for services. This is a gift economy where the goods, or value, is given away for free with no expectation to be compensated. That's difficult for someone to wrap their head around if they have a mindset that their time is worth X-number of dollars.

Your time is worth something and the value you're creating has a subjective value to the community but the rewards are not paid in a linear fashion and have a delay to them.

That is why every successful Steemian keeps saying forget about the money and just keep creating valuable content and engaging with the community and being consistent.

You can't gauge the current rewards you are receiving to the amount of effort you are putting into your posts. They do not correlate linearly and if you keep thinking like that you will get discouraged and quit.

This brings us back to my original point, that of delayed gratification. Every successful Steemit user has made nothing on a post when they first started unless they invested and put their hard earned money at risk.

Delayed gratification is a habit where you forgo short-term pleasure (present comfort) in order to gain significant long-term pleasure and rewards in the future.

In other words, you ward off short-term temptations that might distract you from your long-term goals and objectives in order to focus on what you need to do to achieve your desired long-term outcomes. This, of course, might require that you suffer through short-term pain, fully realizing that this pain is only temporary but necessary to help you get to your ultimate destination.

Getting into the habit of delaying gratification gives you more sense of control over your life, decisions, and actions. Furthermore, it helps you value hard work and effort. You understand even though things might be difficult in the present moment, that it’s necessary you get through this pain in order to experience the long-term pleasure you would ultimately like to have in your life.

The act of delaying gratification helps to strengthen your mind and shape your character, it builds your willpower, promotes higher levels of self-discipline, and teaches you about the value of patience. It is, in fact, the ultimate habit that determines how successful you will become and how much you will ultimately achieve in the future. credit

So how do you avoid the temptations of instant gratification so you can reach your long term goals?

  1. Stop Thinking About Short-term Pleasures
  2. Quit Making Excuses To Justify Your Actions
  3. Keep Yourself Accountable
  4. Learn to Manage Self-Control
  5. Develop Long-term Motivation
  6. Create Visual Reminders of Your Goals
  7. Invest in Future Gains
  8. Prepare for Short-term Pain

In future posts we will go into these points in more detail. I hope you found this post helpful in reaching your goals on Steemit and wish you continued success.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated to grow your Steemit account and engage with the community?

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I have been posting for free all my life... the moment I get 20 cents in a post here I'm happy and when I get 20$ I'm happy as fuck hahaha

Thanks for sharing @luzcypher, I think this post should be the first every user reads when they start in Steemit. Cheers!

I totally agree, @artuomdg!

Oh, and @luzcypher, you couldn't be more right! I have spent more than eight years writing over 5,000 blog posts and publishing almost 11,000 on Bit Rebels, a website that I founded in 2009. It took a long time of hard work but now we are welcoming 3.5+ million visitors per month and it's only going up.

I think, in order to succeed, you have to love the actual path to success and not the moment when you eventually hit the finish line. It's good to have your eyes on the goal, but it does little if you miss the things that will take you there.

Great read, @luzcypher, and I totally agree with you!

I think, in order to succeed, you have to love the actual path to success and not the moment when you eventually hit the finish line.

That is a good piece of wisdom right there. The journey is half the fun.

One of the best definitions of an entrepreneur I have ever heard is,

an entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds an airplane on the way down.

They have a goal but don't over think things too much. They figure it out as they go and enjoy the journey. If they tried to think of overcoming each possible obstacle they may encounter they would never start to begin with. They tend to do things that add value knowing the rewards will eventually come when they get it right.

You just got 4 cents from me for being happy with that 20 cents! Woo!

Hahaha thanks man ;)

I'm glad you found it helpful. Thank you.

Thanks @luzycypher, upped and resteemed. I've found the #openmic competition really motivating. I was fortunate enough to make 200sbd on an original song I posted within the first couple of weeks of joining; this gave me the motivation to "suffer" through the days and days of quality (imo) posts that followed and which only received a few cents. It was frustrating because I was seeing people who were posting content which I considered less good than mine but which was making loads of money.

But then I'd discovered that they had been on the platform for at least a year and that they had tons of followers. I realised that they had made their mark in the community and produced consistent quality that their followers clearly got a lot of value out of. I hadn't done that, so why was I complaining? Since then my approach has been to challenge myself to post at least one a day during the week (with a few exceptions) but not to be hard on myself if I didn't meet all of my goals. My posts now regularly make in excess of $5, and occasionally blow up and make $100. That's not too bad for a couple of months posting. Open Mic and @minnowsupport have been crucial, by the way, and people who aren't members should definitely join MSP, it's been essential for me.
P.S, readers who've got this far through my comment may be up for checking out my latest entry to Open Mic Week 46 :)

I'm thrilled to hear you did so well on an entry to Steemit Open Mic because that was one of the main reasons for starting the contest. It's not surprising because your music is a joy to listen to.

Keep up the good work.

Aw, thanks that genuinely means a lot to me. I'm about to sign up to Grantcoin with your code btw... but it says your ref code is invalid. Do you have a new one perchance?

I'm away from my laptop atm but will send you one.

You can not say it better @luzcypher! That's one of the things most annoys me. Steemit seems to be attached for ever to that feeling of action-reaction write-earnalotofmoneyimmediately.

It lacks of a social component, not to write only for the money or the quick upvotew, but just for the experience to share a knowledge, an idea, a reflexion, a lauy, or a question (it seems this is not a place to ask or debate, just to write statements)

Great post! Upvoted, commented, resteemed, followed and all the possible steem actions :)

Thanks a lot for reading and supporting this content. I have seen a lot of good debates on Steemit so don't give up on the idea that it's not that kind of place, it is. There's just a lot of new people trying to make money and their focus is only on that.

I don't give up, at the contrary! This is the place to be, this is why I shared your post. The most people read it, the better place we'll have

I've been here since ther beginning and I've seen many individuals post and interact for months before they started getting rewards. Those who stuck with it when steem was worth .08 are killing it now, even some with poor content. If you're only here for money, there's a good chance you'll get frustrated fast.

I remember Steem at .04 cents and was just as enthusiastic then as I am now.

The way I looked at it is even .001 steem then would be worth a lot more today.

1% rule - very interesting to see it presented like that, thank you for the graphic. Now I will go back to my lurking......

I guess we have to teach the younger generations about delayed gratification. People nowadays are always in a hurry. In a hurry to get a wife, in a hurry to grow up, in a hurry to settle down by himself.

We need to teach them about delayed gratification instantly because they can't pay attention that long. lol.

Working towards long-term goals and avoiding the trap of instant gratification improves your self-eSTEEM! Nice post. Thx

It most certainly improves you self-eSTEEM too. Thanks for reading and commenting.

luzcypher has been reading books about self motivation and investing. Its nice how they blend seamlessly in this article.

Thanks. I have been learning about these things all my life and applying them. It works.

Mind-fuck. One of the best articles I've ever read here. Kudos.

That's saying a lot. Thanks for appreciating this post.

I am a newbie, this post looks like it was custom made for me. This is a very useful advice for me. Thank you.

You're welcome and welcome to Steemit

Thank you very much.

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