You're a little minnow. Someone has just thrown you into a magnificent ocean full of riches. Although you're super excited to explore, you don't know what's hiding in here so you go careful. After looking around you can only see some cute dolphins, a few gigantic whales and lots and lots of other minnows; no dangers. So you embark on the adventure with confidence, but shortly discover that between all these wonderful creatures, you have no friends! Everyone is swimming past without even noticing you!!

Disappointment settles in and you have no desire to keep going. You settle into a corner and quietly watch the other fish swimming around enthusiastically, wondering what keeps them so excited.

You wrote a lot of brilliant posts that received no attention and you start losing interest. At this point you have two options: either give up and start doing something else, or fight hard to stay motivated.

If you chose option 2, fantastic! But now, how do you do that?

Method 1: Get to know the ocean!

Have a look over the FAQ page, there's lots of information about how Steemit works. There are also many wonderful people who post advice and info about the platform everyday, but the first thing you need to stay sane on Steemit, is to understand why your post may not be successful. You will be inclined to start wondering whether your article was good enough, maybe you're not as skilled as you thought.

The truth is that even though your post was brilliant, there are high chances that it simply got lost. There are thousand and thousand of other minnows swimming around you so try not to fall into the trap of doubting yourself, because you will quickly lose confidence in your abilities and that's pretty hard to get back.

To improve your chances of being noticed, start commenting! Good comments will bring lots of people to your blog.

Method 2: Give up the greed before you begin

The reward system is one of the reasons we're here and not on Reddit, so it's gonna be pretty hard to overlook it. But if you try no to focus on it and enjoy the experience of writing and sharing, it will be easier to keep writing even if your articles don't have success at first.

Method 3: Keep getting better

This is where Steemit can help you grow. You've written a great piece, but after you give it a second look you can think of more improvements you could make. Your next post will be even better. If you can keep this up and constantly improve yourself, after a while you will be so good that your posts will be pretty unmissable!

If you chose option 1

Even if you have lost all interest in writing and there's no way to get it back, don't worry. You're still part of the ocean, so stick around and curate. You can have your say and make a difference from your hide place by supporting (or silently judging) everyone else. Comments are a great way to grow your reputation and you can earn quite a bit without writing your own posts.

Steemit is amazing and full of wonderful people, so however you choose to be a part of it, you will have tons of fun and make life-long friends on here!

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this post useful.

Corina