'If we wait until we are ready, we will be waiting until the rest of our lifes.' Every journey starts with the very first step and then: just keep going. 

My personal recap in numbers: 6 months - 300 followers - 66 rep - 4,500 Steem Power - uncountable conversations - infinite amount of knowledge and SO MUCH FUN. 

Thank you steemit!!!

My top 6 reasons to be a Steemian

After 6 months on the blockchain these are my top reasons to be a Steemian:

1. Transfer of knowledge (everybody you´ll ever meet knows something you don´t) 
2. Content quality standard (attention / reward is mostly gained by quality)  
3. Healthy competition (people act according to the unwritten rule: live and let live) 
4. Equality (everybody has the same chances) 
5. Nice people (the community is steemit´s core and the platform´s real value) 
6. The future of social life (steemit has proven that communities are able to organize themselves through self-government and is therefore groundbreaking for future social networks) 

Lessons learned - steemit is a game!

If I have learned something during the past 6 months, then it´s that we have to keep our expectations realistic. A lot of people came here, got disappointed quickly and left. 

steemit works like real life: if you really want to be good at something FIRST you have to know the rules and SECOND you have to show patience and consistency. 

10 effective tips to improve your blog 

1. Learn from the best: study trendy and successful blogs and their authors: topic, headline, structure, timing, comments. 
2. Analyze your own posts and compare them with the above mentioned 'top sellers', try to improve the so discovered differences. 
3. Try to be diverse, write about different topics and use different taggings - it will help you to gain more attention (followers).
4. Try new things - you have nothing to lose! steemit enables you to be whoever you wanna be. Be a journalist, an artist, a scientist, a poet, a joke teller or whatever comes up to your mind. Then keep with the area / style you feel most comfortable with and/or you are nicely rewarded for. 
5. Use a selection of the top ranked tags to ensure your blog will be visible on the top trending pages. 
6. Promote your posts in the according chat rooms.
7. Give and take: steemit is a community. Read, upvote and comment posts you like, resteem the ones you consider worth sharing. Be pro-community and don´t try to go it alone. 
8. Ask for help: get in contact with more experienced users and ask them to give you some recommendations. Again: this is a community - not a shark pool! :) 
9. Don´t focus on the money: if you constantly improve your input, the outcome will behave accordingly.  

10. Be a rule breaker - risk taker - dream chaser. = Have fun! 

From zero to something - My top 3 posts by payout $$

It took me about 5 months to create 'my personal steemit blog style'. In the very beginning my articles didn´t gain any attention and I didn´t get any considerable rewards for them. BUT I NEVER GAVE UP. 

From my today´s point of view I know exactly why: texts were too long and had no subheading, tagging was suboptimal and the articles had no specific 'message'. I constantly improved my writings until feeling comfortable with the output. The more I learned, the more I got rewarded. It has been a process and still is. 

These have been my top 3 articles by payout so far: 

62.00$ - Ego vs. Ego Strength - Why a healthy ego is essential to our success and happiness 

48.09$ - Blockchain vs. Blogchain - Who are you, steemit?

36.38$ - TIL - What the attention market is and its impact on society

My last advice: be creative - you have nothing to lose! 

steemit enables us to be whoever we wanna be at any time. We can be a journalist, an analyst, a story teller, a poet, an artist or a joke teller - we can even be a mix of all of them. Feedback is given immediately so the learning effect is high, and the given financial rewards encourage us to be best at what we are doing. The other members are friends and competitors at the same time, and thanks to the selfgoverned eco-system competition is community-driven and healthy. 

I am happy to be part of it - thank you! 

Good luck & enjoy the ride,
Marly - 

Picture source girl ball: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/
Picture source quote learn: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/
Picture source girls climbing: http://s3.favim.com/
Picture source quote 'never know': https://sraatgever.files.wordpress.com/