Hi fellow Steemians,
I joined the Steem blockchain as a blogger in December 2017.
Today I would like to share how I increased the pace at which my Steem Power grew without monetary investment, relying instead on passive and semi-passive methods as well as sheer effort.
After posting articles diligently during my first three months on the Steem blockchain, I threw in the towel and left the platform for five months when I realised the difficulty of gaining Steem Power through upvotes for my posts.
However, I became active on the Steem blockchain five months later, when I realised through my research that one should blend into the Steem ecosystem in order to make any headway.
As such, I began to interact on the Steem blockchain by participating in contests and activities.
My interactions with 
I made my first breakthrough when I won 25 Steem Basic Income shares in a contest organised by
Basically, Steem Basic Income allows users to earn upvotes for their blog posts based on the number of Steem Basic Income shares they own. This is a semi-passive way to increase Steem Power.
I also began to reinvest the Steem and SBD I earned by purchasing upvotes on Minnowbooster.
My second breakthrough came when I was accepted to the Minnowbooster Whitelist after being nominated by a user.
Being on the Minnowbooster Whitelist allows one to cast votes for users who are nominated to the Whitelist and also make nominations to the Whitelist. If the user a Whitelist member voted for or nominated gets accepted, the Whitelist member can obtain commission in the form of SBD for upvote purchases by the user.
Above are my passive SBD commission for the last week and previous month.
Last month, I started to post my articles through Partiko.
Partiko facilitates the earning of Steem Power in a semi-passive manner by awarding Partiko Points when users upvote blog posts, make comments or post articles.
The Partiko Points can be converted into upvotes when users make postings.
Another semi-passive platform which I joined last month is Steemvotes.
Steemvotes performs upvotes for other blog articles on users' behalf, and grants Upvote Credits that the users can exchange for upvotes to their own posts.
Finally, I became a beta tester for Steemeum- a mining app for Steem based on Proof of Time- this month.
Beta testers get their passively earned SBD credited every Sunday at 12am (UTC).
I hope the above account of my 14-month journey on the Steem blockchain serves to encourage new users who may feel disheartened by the seemingly arduous process of building up their Steem Power.
Even though my current Steem Power may be miniscule compared to the big holders on the platform, I firmly believe that I am going in the right direction, and will be able to build a substantial passive income stream from the Steem blockchain eventually.