10% of us produce the content for 90% to consume

Before anyone flames me, I totally made up those numbers. =P

I joined earlier this year and while I saw the action going on in the Steemit ecosystem, I couldn't participate very actively because there was a lack of motivation, time, and ultimately guts to put myself out there for the world to see and judge. This is likely the case for 90% of new users.

The remaining 10% who produce original and thought out posts will provide the majority of the content that gets seen and possibly upvoted by anywhere from 1 to an infinite number of people. And even within that smaller category, the reality is that only a few of us will have a deep enough commitment to continue to post over the long term as this platform develops. So how do you stay motivated on this journey?

)Croton Viaduct)

Interaction is KEY

If you are the type of person who shies away from creating content because you feel as though you have nothing valuable to provide, then you should start by talking about other people's content through comments. Your ability to provide insightful and meaningful interaction with the steemit community is EQUALLY important to the content creators as a whole. Steemit cannot work as a community if everyone talks, and no one listens or discusses. As you commit more time to talking to others, reading quality content, then you can start picking up the styles that you enjoy and get out there to create something for yourself.

Testing concepts and ideas

The internet doesn't care who you are, and they have a short term memory (unless you mess with the guys on 4chan or reddit, they will dig up every skeleton in your closet if you give them a reason to!). So everything you do, will be forgotten if it doesn't jive with the community. If you didn't like your last post, then make your next post different. You need to find your own style and way of sharing your thoughts. This process of testing out different styles is the hard work that you need to put in to find your style. It's also excellent practice to get to the point where people begin to follow you.

I've got all but 99 followers, so I'm not one to say much about this topic, but what I do know is that I enjoy creating videos and when I feel like I nailed one, someone will comment and give me an honest opinion about it and that means that I'm on the right path. It gives me the motivation to keep doing something that I enjoy for myself and it validates that what I do has given enjoyment to someone.

Steemit is a lot like cooking

Everyone wants to eat, but very few people like to cook. The ones who love to cook, REALLY enjoys cooking for others, and cooks love to be appreciated for their hard work.

At the end of the day, self expression is an important tool to learn about yourself and to build confidence and Steemit has really become a great tool to incentivize you to be yourself because of the weighted upvote system and economic incentive. The community pushes you to be as genuine and honest as you possibly can. Our bullshit meters are highly tuned these days and we can pick out bullshit before the smell hits us, so if you feel like you are posting bullshit, step back a bit and provide insightful comments instead!