Today I was asked if it's okay to give up and accept that Steemit might just not be for you when you've only been making cents on your posts.

First of all: Of course it's okay! :)

Steemit is indeed not for everyone.

But before you give up, ask yourself these four questions:

• Why are you here? Why did you join Steemit in the first place?
• How will you know that you're successful on Steemit?
• How much time are you ready to commit to this per day or week?
• How much time will you give to this experiment before you "give up"?

#1 Why are you here?

It's safe to say that what initially attracted us, was the money, right? I mean - none of us has been waiting for yet another social network.

We are here because we get financially rewarded for it.

Depending on our economic situation, Steemit can be a life saver or a nice-to-have-bonus.

In either case though, it requires a lot of work.

If you are a natural born writer or sharer of your art - be it writings, photos or videos - then this work might not feel like work to you at all. Steemit might actually feel like heaven to you!

If you're not a natural and all this posting does feel like work, but you're earning great money with your posts, it will still be okay. After all, you've always had to work for your money, only now you can suddenly make a lot more. Still a great deal, right?

However, if it does feel like work and you're not earning great rewards, you have to look at your ROI - Return On Investment.

Do the rewards justify the amount of work and time you invest on Steemit?

For some Steemians the answer might be a clear No (hence, the number of dead Steemians). They might have done the math and noticed that their time is much better spent elsewhere.

Doing the math is important!

Other (very much alive) Steemians did the math, too, and noticed it's time to quit their day job, so they could invest their time fully in Steemit. It just made mathematical and economical sense to them.

But those are of course still the exception and for some of us this will never happen. We may not even want that.

That's why the next question is very important:

#2 How will you know that you're successful on Steemit?

Let's imagine Harry Potter is waving his magic wand and makes you successful NOW.

POOF!!

You are now successful on Steemit.

What does that look like for you?

• Have you quit your dayjob?
• Are you paying your rent from Steemit income?
• Have you been able to buy a new laptop or a ticket to Steemfest from your rewards here?
• Does $100 a week mean "success" to you?

Really get clear on this, because otherwise you won't know what you're actually working towards to and you'll never know if you're on track.

Okay, now that you know what you want to get out of Steemit..

#3 How much time are you ready to commit to this per day/week?

A clear goal takes consistent action. Financial success on Steemit largely depends on your followers. The more (of the right) people follow you, the more people see your content and the more people might upvote it.

In order to gain more followers you need to engage a lot and build relationships. That means, investing time to read other people's posts, leaving (thoughtful!) comments, and possibly interacting with people in the Steemit.chat.

If this part doesn't come easy to you, schedule it in your day or week. It will be work.

How much can you comfortably or realistically do? One hour a day? Two hours a week? Put it in your calendar.

And then do it :)

#4 How many weeks or months will you allow yourself for this experiment?

Four weeks? Three months?

Now that you know what you want to achieve, and how much time you can spend on achieving it, give yourself a deadline.

"By [date x] I want to have (quit my day job, be able to pay my rent, make $100 a week, etc. See question #2).

And on that day, do a thorough review:

• Did you achieve your goal?
• Did you really spend the time and made the effort you committed to?
• Was the time investment worth it?

And based on your findings you can now chose to either continue as is, adjust your approach or feel good about quitting Steemit.

It won't be "giving up" - it will be a conscious decision to stop, based on data instead of Steemit-fatigue.

What does success on Steemit mean to me?

I am here to earn money for investments.

I do my posts 50/50, so 50% are automatically invested in Steem, and the other 50% I send to Bittrex to invest in other coins.

If I can send $50 a month to Bittrex, I'm happy. It means that I get to invest approximately $100 per month in my financial future, that don't come out of my own pocket.

I've been on Steemit for a little over three months and I've actually taken out more than $300 so far. So I've been making double what I hoped for.

Knowing this, helps me get over the articles that only made $0.30 or so. It gives me perspective.

It's easy to get discouraged by those small amounts, but when you remember the big picture - your overall goal and reason for being here - those tiny amounts might not matter, because you're achieving your goal anyway.

If I wouldn't achieve my goal, I would have to do more and work harder.

One way I could work harder is to engage with people on the Steemit.chat. That would really feel like work to me, because I am already overwhelmed with all the communication tools I use in my daily life. But I would do it, in order to achieve my goal.

But as long as I know I am on track with achieving my monthly goals, I can just continue doing things the way I do.

Writing comes pretty easily and spontaneously to me (e.g. I had no idea this morning that I was going to publish this (or any) post this afternoon). So it doesn't really feel like work to me. I also love engaging with others here in the comments. So to me, the ROI - the math - makes sense and feels good.

I hope this has been helpful!

Onwards,

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Hi, I’m Anja :)
I write mostly for women entrepreneurs and support them in managing their money and their business. I create tutorials for newbies in the crypto (and Steemit) space and am currently building the Conscious Crypto Community.
You can also find me in the Women of Dash group on Slack.