ARE YOU NEW HERE, FEELING A LITTLE OVERWHELMED AND LOST?

YUP...I GET IT!

I've been feeling a little daunted too.

It feels like there's so many new and alien things to learn, but let me tell you what I've been doing to resolve this issue. I spent a few days, looking around, trying to get familiar with the interface and platform.

Then I thought I would "dive in" and become a whale within the week...

Uhm, NO!

Let's face it, we'd all like to find that magical secret formula to do just that. But just like anything worth doing, there's learning involved, but I sincerely believe that if you resolve to follow the tips here, life will be easier, your journey smoother and success, all but guaranteed.

I decided to go back to basics, day one style and learn properly.

What I found was, every question, query and confusion that I had, had already been fully answered in a post somewhere on Steemit! this was incredibly reassuring and it felt like I had a guide at my side to help me through those sticky problems such as;

1. How do I upload pictures?
2. How do I powerup rewards to steempower?
3. How does reputation score work?
4. What's the difference between Steem, Steem backed dollars and steempower?
5. Why do users get flagged and how to avoid this happening?
6. How can I buy Steem?
7. What is the deal with all those passkeys we have?
8. What is delegation and how does it work?
9. What the hell is a witness? (Do I need to attend court?)
10. How is authoring/curation reward share calculated?

I decided I would list 10 of the questions that I had and that I found comprehensive answers to from the Steemit community, trust me, this list could have easily been 30 or even 50 questions long.

My point is that I found all the answers I needed without needing to leave this awesome site

An added benefit to this is that I left positive comments and thanks to some of the amazing users who supplied the answers that I craved, this caused me to start interacting with the community and trust me once you start engaging with those who love to help...Your journey really begins and you can really start to power up under your own STEEM!

In turn this starts to increase your reputation score and earn you those first crucial upvotes and followers...Ah yes, followers and content...The lifeblood of our wonderful, decentralised community!

If you are new to writing, these interactions will help you begin honing this skill, if you are a little subconscious of your vocabulary, open a theosaurus online and begin to use some new words, unusual turns of phrase.

NEVER BE AFRAID TO ASK QUESTIONS!

My albeit limited experience over the past few weeks has taught me that there are some incredibly helpful people here and many of them REALLY want to help us minnows to succeed as this in turn grows the community, and makes things better for everyone.

There are many, many more tips that I would love to share right now, BUT I will keep that for my follow up post, after all my opening comment was...

"ARE YOU NEW HERE, FEELING A LITTLE OVERWHELMED AND LOST?"

The last thing I wanna do is add to that with information overload. However a couple of noteworthy points that should be fairly obvious, but bear repeating are;

1. If you do leave a comment, remember we are here to add value and create amazing content to populate the platform, so don't just say "great post" or "Well done", this adds zero value to the narrative and benefits nobody whatsoever.
2. Always be respectful, it is OK to have an opposing view to somebody else, indeed this can add a little spice to life. But don't go telling people they are wrong, or making rude or derogatory comments, do engage in debate, this is beneficial to a community.
3. Engage, engage, engage, by this I mean, make genuine comments, add followers who share similar interests, or just those whose style you like. I do NOT mean vote for anything that moves, or comment on every post you scroll by.
4. Share your area of knowledge, and in turn help the plankton entering the Steemit pond everyday.
5. Read Trending, Hot and New articles by category to see if you can spot the sort of content that others love, If you can replicate, experiment or expand on these ideas you can build a very loyal and rewarding sub community.
6. When you come across genuinely amazing posts, show them some love, don't go chasing the whales, You ain't ready! When you learn to catch a minnow, you will be learning the skills to catch a dolphin...Don't get pulled overboard by a whale before you are ready!
7. Post without expectation, don't publish your post and sit hovering over the refresh button, ready to see if a whale dropped you a $10 dollar tip, you are new, practice the process, when you have made a few good quality posts and comments, rewards will follow.
8. Do NOT leave comments asking for follows and upvotes, it is considered "spammy", let your content do its job over time...Organically.
9. It's also not a great idea to only leave comments on posts on the pages of those with deep wallets, they often see through this, you don't wanna appear desperate, right? Just keep on writing, creating. Remember the awesome quote from the movie Field of dreams? "Build it and they will come".
10. I saved the most revolutionary, magical, AWESOME pro-tip for last on my list of 10, as I rate it as crucial to longevity and success on the platform. Have FUN! Work and move among the community, you will soon feel like one of them.

This is quite a basic, stripped bare day 1 (or day 20 re-learning)list. It is designed to let you start (or indeed return to the start) and set off with the correct aims, mindset a roadmap of sorts. I will be covering many of the strategies mentioned here in individual "in depth" posts over the coming weeks. But, don't rush, start right and really SUCCEED.

DON'T be disappointed that there's a lot of new things to learn, you don't have to learn it all today, that's not how you buildup to your driving test, right? Try and enjoy the learning, the new skills, and remember the famous quote, from Art Williams...

**I'm not telling you it's gonna be easy, I'm telling you it's gonna be worth it"

You my friend are going to be an amazing STEEMIAN! :)

Thankyou for staying with me till the end, may I take this opportunity to wish you the most amazing, fulfilling, EPIC journey.

Images courtesy of the AWESOMETASTICAL Pixabay.