THE WINDUP

Last year this week was the first time I placed on @abh12345's Engagement League list. If you look down a ways, you can see me debuting at No. 26.

You can also see my numbers:

That week, I had ten posts, 63 comments, 27 of those comments on other people's blogs, amassing 30,685 total characters (or 487 characters per comment). The rest of the categories have to do with witness votes, total upvotes, upvote spread, and self-voting.

The Engagement league had been recommended to me by @themanwithnoname, who you can see finished in the green. We'd connected some weeks prior, and while I'm not remembering the exact conversation (he might), it undoubtedly had something to do with how I was feeling about my short journey on STEEM to that point.

Less than three full months in, you see, I was ready to quit. I probably would have held out for a while longer (I'm stubborn that way), but I didn't feel like I was getting any traction, and dang it, I should be! I was posting, I was commenting and curating, and I was working over 12 hours a day. And I was tired of it. Tired of putting in the time and getting very little out of it.

When No Name mentioned the League, I thought to myself something along the lines of, Great. Something else to try that probably will go nowhere. I didn't tell him that, but it still took me a week or so to sign up for the League. I think I finally did because I went to the latest post then and saw all these numbers, and they instantly made me curious what mine were, and how I might rank among the top engagers.

Nothing like competition to get me involved and motivated.

Now, after all the self-pity I was feeling, imagine my surprise when I realized that what I was doing wasn't as awesome as I thought it was. I'd worked quite hard that week, too, from what I remember, and felt like I couldn't do much more. When I saw the results above, I realized what I thought was my best was not good enough. Not if I wanted to finish in the money (the green).

I guess I could have given up then, decided, Forget this. There's no way, and just disappeared like hundreds of thousands of others have done. Instead, with metrics to work with, I decided to redouble my efforts. That stubborn streak I mentioned earlier.

The next week looked like this:

Somehow, though I thought I was doing my absolute best, I managed to nearly triple my total comments, quadruple the characters, and move up the ladder 23 spots to No. 3. Even so, it still wasn't good enough for first place, as I was well over 12,000 points behind No. 1, @lynncoyle1.

Again, I guess I could have quit thinking this was way too hard. How much more could I really do in a week? But my competitive juices were kicking in, and I figured if I could triple output in one week, maybe I could do even more.

Well, I did. By the end of the following week, I added another 117 comments for a total of 301, over half of those on other blogs, and wrote over 190,000 characters. As a result, I wound up in first place.

Three weeks before this, I was on the verge of giving up. Throw in the towel. Maybe even burn bridges on my way out. Do you think I was ready to quit STEEM after I reached No. 1 on the Engagement League list? Not on your life. I had a newfound sense of purpose. And funny enough, it wasn't about winning the Engagement League (yes, it was the incentive). It was the fact that I could do so much more than I thought I could, that I was a part of something greater than self, something that would actually help the STEEM platform in so many ways, and that I needed to do more if I wanted to get anywhere on STEEM.

You see, it was a few weeks after that the amounts on my posts started to rise quite a bit. People were starting to get a sense of who I was, and they were taking time to look at my posts, and then deciding to upvote them. In the meantime, I was doing the same thing with them and quite a few others. No, I didn't upvote everything from everyone, and nor did they mine. The point is, I was being 'seen' for the first time, and it was because I had finally found out what the formula for STEEM success was, and I was finally getting to the minimum level for it.

Fast forward to this past week.

I'm still here, on STEEM and competing in the Engagement League, though well out of the top at No. 19. You can see there's more metrics, and yes, more colors. The scoring has changed (however they're computed, the scores come out much lower now), but you can see the numbers among the winners are still high. In some instances, very high.

I can't say it's been all a bed of roses in the intervening time. It hasn't. There's something about this place that repulses you as hard as it draws you in. That constant battering takes its toll. And yet, though I've fallen down the list, and occasionally fallen off, I've checked every week to see where I'm at, who won, and by how much.

More than anything else, this Engagement League has kept me on STEEM. Yes, there are people and nice-sized upvotes in that mix, but the League has been it, week after week after week. I suppose not everyone who has tried it will see it the way I do, just as I know many do. We're the ones still here, still plugging along, incrementally growing our stake.

Oh. Regarding that—a side note: By the end of March last year I had a fraction over 181.5 earned SP. As I wrote about it here I hope to have surpassed the 2,000 earned SP amount by the end of this month. No, that's not a whole lot, compared to what others do here, but that's okay. I know I've been doing it the slow and hard way.

And, when you have 181.5 SP, 2,000 looks like a lot.

THE PITCH

If you need something to motivate you, if you're feeling like you're getting lost in a sea of posts and comments, if you feel like you can't do more, or you're ready to quit, I would urge you to join the Curation and Engagement Leagues. Even if it's just to see how much you're doing compared to others, or because you're looking for something more to be a part of, join the leagues. I can't guarantee anything—it will depend on you and what everyone else is doing as to how much success you have with the leagues, and outside of it with your own posts. In other words, results do vary.

I do, however, guarantee you an opportunity. An opportunity for purpose, and a renewed sense of community. While I can't speak for any of them, I believe those who continue to participate in the leagues feel purpose and a sense of community. I do, and if you'd like those things, or more of those things, I encourage and highly recommend you join the leagues.

All you have to do is go to @abh12345 blog, find his last leagues post, and make a comment that you would like to join the leagues. That's it. Asher will add you. If he doesn't right away, bug him until he does. Just be polite, please.

_{All images are from various Curation and Engagement Leagues posts by @abh12345.}