The Many Reasons For Success: Sticking to It!

Even though I'm not exactly what I would consider a "successful" writer, people often ask me what it takes to succeed as a blogger or a writer.

Maybe I become the go-to person because I'm a book and magazine editor as part of what I do for a living, or maybe it's because I have been blogging since the late 1990s that I get this question.

Truth be known I'm not 100% sure what it takes, because I'm not convinced that I figured it out yet!

One thing I am pretty sure about, is that you got to pick something and then stick with it.

You don't really give anything a chance to succeed unless you hang out with it for a long time and really put your best effort into it. Whenever I talk to somebody who's having a hard time making a go of whatever they've invested themselves in, I often discover that they have a tendency to flit around from one thing to another and not really focus very well.

Maybe it just speaks to my conservative nature that I tend to not really get involved in anything unless I feel like there's a reasonably good chance that I'm going to stay with it in the long run.

I remember in the earliest days of Steemit there were several other people here I would have comment exchanges with and we were often talking about the fact that we were going to give it five years to see whether it worked out for us or not. I guess something must have worked out right since I have just passed my seventh year here!

Perhaps part of the problem with the whole "success" issue is the fact that each individual person tends to have their own way in which they're going to define that term. What does success really mean to you?

Just consider the world of books, with which I am quite familiar. One person a talk to might consider it a huge success if their manuscript is actually picked up by a publisher and put into print. The next person might feel like nothing short of being on the New York Times Bestseller List constitutes success. See the dilemma?

And perhaps that points towards just another important aspect of success. You can't just dabble in something... you have to have a clear vision of what it is you're trying to accomplish. And that includes having a reasonably clear idea of what success will mean, and knowing what it is when you reach it!

Over the years, I've met quite a few people who just toil away day after day and they do have the required patience and they look to me like they're quite successful... but since they never defined what "successful" is — to them — they just keep chasing around trying, to reach the proverbial carrot that's being dangled some undefined distance in front of their face.

Somehow, after talking to them, I know that they're never going to reach their definition of success because it's a moving target.

We humans tend to have a way of making things more complicated than they need to be. Personally speaking, I've never been all that oriented towards "success," as convention defines it. I tend to be more concerned with whether I'm enjoying what I'm doing, and if I'm not enjoying what I'm doing it's a pretty good bet that I won't think it a success, and that I'm going to stop and go do something else!

So, as you can see, I have studiously avoided directly addressing the topic at hand!

On A Different Note: Please Support @the-gorilla's DAO proposal to modernize the Steemit interface!

If you have not been here for a long time, you might not be aware that Steemit is largely community driven. That means many changes and updates aren't created by "some company or management," but by individual community members.

The "look and feel" of the Steemit interface has not changed significantly in the seven years I have been here, and it is terribly outdated. @the-gorilla is a professional developer who has proposed to create a "modernization." And for that to happen, he needs your vote, much in the same way we vote for Witnesses.

I encourage you to read the proposal and vote in support of it — it's the 2nd one down from the top! Every vote counts, little and large!

Thanks for stopping by and reading, and have a wonderful remainder of your weekend!

How about you? Do you have a personal definition of "success?" When you set out on a quest or project, do you have a clear idea of what "succeeding" looks like? Did you vote for the new Steemit interface development? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.02.03 23:05PST
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