How Goal Setting And Delayed Gratification Has Brought Me This Far In Steemit

I am thrilled that I'll be six months old in steemit this weekend (17th of September, 2017). Hmm...how time flies! From the day I found steemit accidentally, while surfing the internet, and signed up, it was clear in my mind and head where I wanted to be after a set time. Today, I'm glad to be among the 1,187 steemit dolphins as seen clearly on the steemitboard designed by witness @arcange. The steemit journey or ride has not been an easy one, I must confess. I've spent so many hours sitting, creating content for my blog post, reading and commenting on blog posts of other steemians, responding to comments on my blog post, sleepless nights etc. Some of you have mentors today. I had none, so I wallowed in ignorance not knowing many things in steemit. I still do not have a mentor. However, there are people who have helped me a great deal to get to where I am today. I am talking of veteran steemians, who inspire me. They have helped me, through my reading their blog posts, watching their youtube and now dtube videos, interacting with them on their blogs. I am very grateful to all of them. Some newbies today have the luxury of being mentored by veteran steemians. They should count themselves lucky!
The art dreaming big/envisioning something big, goal setting and delayed gratification has brought me to where I am today in steemit. I read a post by recently by @surpassinggoogle about dreaming again. This brings me to goal setting.

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Goal Setting

The Merriam Webster's dictionary defines goals as the end toward which effort is directed.@https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goal . They are the little steps you take towards achieving your objectives and overall vision. Goal setting in itself is a life building skill. I remember vividly when I was part of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) /United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) & HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project back home in Nigeria. Part of what we were taught during the trainings and refresher trainings that we always had before we were sent out to the field (NYSC orientation camps) to go and implement the project, were life building skills. Being a training of the trainers (TOT) project, whatever we learnt, we were told to train youth corp members in the same manner and these corp members were in turn going to train 7th, 8th and 9th graders below 15 yrs of age (In the Nigeria Educational System, they are children in Junior Secondary School, JSS 1, 2 and 3). So, the goal setting skills that we learnt and passed down to the younger generation, I have been applying in my life, especially when I have projects to handle. We train people to learn how to set SMART goals. I set SMART goals before I joined steemit. Smart goals are those that are

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant & Realistic
• Time-bound

Note: Any goal without a time line is just a dream or fantasy. Oftentimes, it never gets actualized

Before my first three months ended in steemit (by the 17th of June), I told myself that I was going to first attain minnowhood. There was no week that passed by that I did not power up. I invested by buying steem power (SP) as well as earned SP. If fact, all my posts were on ''power up mode'', so that I could earn my rewards in steem power (SP), instead of 50/50 in SP and Steem Backed Dollars (SBDs). Again, after becoming a minnow, I aimed to become a dolphin, applied the same principles and today I am among almost 1,200 steemit dolphins. I have set a higher target for myself, which is to become an orca with at least 50,000 SP. When I am going to get there is what I cannot exactly tell you, but a reasonable time frame have been set. The most important thing is to keep working on achieving your set goals on a daily basis. I ask you, If you do not have your goals clearly written out, with a plan of action (POA) to back them up, how then do you intend to achieve them?

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Some Practical Tips On How Redfish Can Become Minnows In Three to Six Months

I am dedicated to helping redfish become minnows as quickly as they want to, through mentorship and other ways outlined in the introductory post of my pet project, @redfishpillar. The project does not in any way limit the ability of newbies to dream to become whales. No, not at all! It is to help their journey to become a whale easier, more fruitful and pleasant. Like @surpassinggoole usually says

You are a whale. You are the CEO!

These words are very true. Of course, I've always had a whale mentality, even before joining steemit and finally when I started out. I think you should have same whale mentality too. However, it is not possible to get to 9th grade, when you haven't finished from 1st to 8th grade. In the steemit of today, although it might be easy to buy 500 SP to become a minnow, it would be really difficult to ''buy your way'' to dolphinhood (about 5000 SP to 50,000 SP). So take it easy and go step by step. Be consistent. That is key.

I believe that it is very possible to become a minnow in 3 to 6 months in steemit, with hard work, smart work and determination. Excuses don't work! So, please try not to tow that path of giving excuses. Let me show you practical steps on how a redfish can become a minnow in 6 months

• Generate and save 3 SP daily

• Make sure to power up 21 SP weekly (In 4 weeks, there'll be 84 SP sitting in your steemit account)

• In six (6) months, you'll have 504 SP, following this piece of advice and you'll become a minnow!

Meanwhile, if a redfish wants to achieve this aim of becoming a minnow faster, then he could just invest about $750 to buy SP. In my country that would amount to investing about 270,000 NGN. We all know that there is economic recession in Nigeria and it is biting really hard!

Now that I've revealed practical steps on how to set SMART goals, the SMART goals for redfish might look something like this

• To become a minnow in 6 months (11th of September, 2017 to 11th of March, 2018)
• To power up 3 SP daily or 21 SP weekly
• To power up all my posts for one month
• To post at a good content every day
• To interact with at least 10 steemians daily, by reading their blog posts, voting and leaving useful comments there.

In another blog post, I'll narrate how delayed gratification has helped me get to where I am, at the moment, in my steemit journey. So stay tuned...!

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I WOULD LIKE TO SPECIALLY THANK @OLUWOLEOLAIDE FOR DONATING 20 STEEM TOWARDS THE SPONSORSHIP OF 2 STEEMIANS (REDFISH) TO STEEMIT IN NIGERIA CONFERENCE (SIN). MORE DONATIONS ARE NEEDED AND WOULD WE WELCOMED. THANK YOU.

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Image source 1, 2

Do you have clearly stated SMART steemit goals? Share with us in the comments section below. I would like to hear from you again.

Your friend,

@maryfavour

Thanks for taking time to read!