Here it is. The best advice I can give to new Steemians.

I made a HUGE mistake early in my Steemit career. This error held me back in a big way, resulting in a loss of potential reputation points, followers, earnings, and opportunity. Let my mess-up be a lesson for you and don't repeat my mistake!

I joined Steemit in August of 2016. At first, I was posting every day and seeing practically no success from my effort. Then, gradually, I started to gain followers and earn some Steem! I was ecstatic.

I've always loved to write, and I'd put in thousands of hours over the years to improve my writing ability. But trying to write for a living seemed impossible. I got rejection after rejection from the magazines I sent my stories to, and blog posts I'd spent hours crafting received fewer than 20 views. But on Steemit, once I'd put in my initial few weeks of effort for little to no return, I started to get a lot of views. And those views corresponded with a major uptick in votes--even some nice, fat whale votes. I started to think that maybe I'd found a way to actually make my living from writing.

Steemit was my dream come true.

I redoubled my effort. I networked with more people on the platform. I published more posts, and I tried to narrow down a niche that would eventually become my Steemit specialty. The niche I chose was humor, and my humorous short stories and articles were generally performing quite well, earning me enough money for three straight months that I considered quitting my job to focus solely on Steemit.

But then, the price of Steem took a dive, and payouts went down with it.

Posts that had previously been earning me $60 - $200 were now bringing in less than $5. Even so, I kept at it for awhile, thinking that this dip in profitability would pass.

But it didn't take long before I grew discouraged. I had a lot going on in my life at the time, and it just didn't seem worth the investment of time and creativity to pump out all of these stories and essays, only getting pennies in return.

So I stopped posting.

At first I told myself it was just for a few days, so I could take care of some other things. That would've been fine, if I'd kept my own promise to myself. But I didn't. Weeks went on. Months. It was always in the back of my mind to get back on Steemit, but it's not easy to pick an abandoned habit back up. I posted only three times in half a year.

I came back to the platform in May, and after a few weeks of reentry by fits and starts, I finally resumed my habit of posting (almost) every day. I even (very recently) started to reassert myself into the funny tag. But I've spent a lot of time kicking myself for staying gone for so long.

If I'd kept posting regularly, even when I had so much other stuff going on (I could've cut down to three posts a week instead of stopping completely) I would probably have quadruple the number of followers and steem power that I do now. My reputation score would be much higher, and I would have a firmer grasp on all of the new innovations and initiatives that have come to Steemit in my absence. Plus, while the SBD payouts were low, so were a lot of other cryptocurrencies. I could have been building my portfolio by bits and pieces the whole time. Perhaps most importantly, I would have been able to build and nurture so many new connections and friendships by sticking around. Even though the payouts were low when I quit, I would have benefited tremendously from making a different decision.

Here's where I went wrong:

I was looking at Steemit the wrong way.

At the time I quit, I saw Steemit as a way to achieve my dream of becoming a full-time writer, getting paid well for what I love doing. And it's not that Steemit can't be that, it's that I was expecting it to happen--or to continue happening--quickly and without bumps in the road.

That's not how Steemit works. In fact, I doubt that's how anything works. Steemit is a market. It has peaks and valleys, and it's only if you're in it for the long haul that you can really reap the benefits. I had joined Steemit during a peak, and the earnings I received in my first two months gave me unrealistic expectations of how things would be going forward.

If I'd been more reflective about my choice, I might have seen this. I might have also seen that there is so much more to Steemit than just the payouts. As a content creator here, I'm not just earning some money for doing what I love. I'm also contributing to the decentralization of money and social media, taking part in a daring experiment, building relationships, and growing an audience. Those should be my primary motivators for being on the platform. The earnings are secondary--because, for one thing, they aren't a guarantee, and for another, they only come as a result of the primary things I mentioned.

It looks like Steemit may be entering a new slump, of sorts.

After a record high, the price of Steem is correcting. And the heady days of HF19's massive upvote increase are drawing to a close. Payouts are going down, and Steemians are being more conservative with their vote percentages.

Folks who joined during the past one to two months may have gotten accustomed to earning, or seeing others earn, pretty darn good cryptomoney from their content creation. And now the payouts are going down. How low can they go? Does it matter? Will you abandon the platform if it doesn't continue to conform to your initial expectations?

Will you repeat my mistake, and forfeit six months worth of SP, followers, and relationship building?

Undoubtedly, some will. A lot of new Steemians are going to repeat my mistake of December, 2016. They're going to get discouraged and give up.

But you don't have to.

You can do the opposite of what I did. You can hang in there. You can remember that we Steemians are riding a badass rollercoaster--so just enjoy the ride. You can keep participating, if not for the big fat payouts, then for the love and community and for the thrill of being part of this radical new thing that is going to change the world.

Keep on Steeming!

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I love you, Steemit!

Hi! My name is Leslie Starr O'Hara, but my friends call me Starr. I live in the mountains of North Carolina and I write humor, fiction, musings, and essays here on Steemit.

Upvotes and Resteems are amazing!

@lesliestarrohara