Energy and persistence conquer all things. - Benjamin Franklin

In a blogger's world these super powers are creativity and hard work.

The reason why many new users struggle on this platform, is that they don't look at the bigger picture and primarily focus on immediate success. Their expectations are far above realistically set targets, what can lead to a negative user experience.

Many leave before they even started.

Today - after 1.5 years on Steemit - I'm among the best 110 content creators with regards to reputation. I can tell you that the way to the top was never easy, but it gets easier over time: In the beginnings I had about 50 new followers per month, now there are 1,000 joining my blog every month.

Still every day is a new challenge, and every day I'm competing anew for attention, rewards and reputation. That's what I call #theeverydayproject.

Here's to the inestimable value of vision and patience!

@surfermarly getting started before the next surf session

The exponential growth theory

After hitting another two milestones in very few time, I had a deeper look at the numbers of my steemit blog.

When analyzing the number of followers over time, something really interesting catched my eye. While it took many months to recruit the very first 1,000, after having reached a certain level, the numbers started to literally take off.

Here's how my Steem followership has grown over time:

The red curves are the numbers forecasted for the future.

Maybe the forecast for the next 6 months is quite conservative :-)

I have a bet running with Asher @abh12345 who said that I'd reach 7,000 followers faster than him. It's gonna be a miserable fail, Ash - because you're much better in moving the masses and you know it - ha!

By the way everybody is invited to help me winning the bet (the prize carries the value of 1 Steem) by starting to follow @abh12345 :-)

Jokes aside what these numbers clearly show is that besides efforts we need patience! Of course you can use voting bots in order to boost your content and provide it with more visibility, but that won't help you to grow in the long run. It's rather an expensive straw fire!

I've never used any boosters and I haven't paid for any upvote in 18 months, and look where I stand now.

Organic growth, generated by users who find and follow you because they love your content, is priceless! Obviously building an audience takes time. But show me one person that has become tremendously successful in a business without dedication! ............................. OK, I see it's hard to reply to that one :-)

Only organic growth is sustainable growth!

One of the great benefits of gradually building an audience is that you will live the overwhelming feeling of reaching important milestones over and over again.

Over time the invervals between one important step and another become shorter. That doesn't mean that it gets easier to accomplish them. While your visibility grows, you automatically receive more attention - thus your own expectations start to increase again. Sometimes you'll even find yourself being as impatient as in the beginnings!

With more success comes more pressure to deliver. But then reaching a milestone will feel even more deserved.

Once you've passed a certain level make sure having enough champagne at home just in case :-)

@surfermarly celebrating her very first little milestone: 300 followers - yeah!

@surfermarly's Instagram post after reaching the first considerable Steem milestone

My 5,000 followers video even became my financially most successful blog post of all times - click the play button to watch it again

Lesson learned today: The journey's the reward!

Make sure that you're having a huge portion of fun on this platform right from the start, because the first months are usually the hardest.

Don't compare yourself to users who're already bringing thousands of followers from other networks with them. Their influencer status will provide them with special attention, and that's why their audience will grow much faster than yours.

Still: follow them! You will learn a lot from them in any case. Try to be like a sponge, learn from the best, improve your own skills and start to hunt them then :-)

Every time you look at accounts that have a higher reputation or larger number of followers, think about my words:

We all started from zero :-)

Much love and much success 💙
Marly -

Thanks for your valuable time!
This blog was launched at the end of July 2016
aiming to provide stories for open-minded
people who enjoy living on the edge of their lives,
stepping out of comfort zones, going on adventure,
doing extreme sports and embracing the new.
Welcome to the too-much-energy-blog!

PS: Don't forget that this is a troll-free zone.

Original content.