Hey guys, depressedfuckup here. This is my first task as a newbie of the newbies initiative, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to learn how things work on Hive under the guidance of @nkemakonam89.

A lot was said during the Discord meeting on Saturday, and my response to the task will be what I learnt from the discussion in the meeting, and the setting goals on hive by @starstrings. My response to the questions of the task will be in essay form, and will cover my hive goals for the 7 weeks learning curve of this newbies initiative. Let’s get into it then.

Goals and benefits of setting goals

In my understanding of the word, goals are simply things you aim to achieve. But it’s not that easy. It doesn’t just end at aiming to achieve something. Goals need work, planning and time to be achieved. On hive, people set goals across many parameters. Some people have goals relating to building their Hive Power, others on improving their engagement, a whole lot.

But why set these goals?

Goals give you a sense of direction. Without goals, your efforts are mostly likely going to be misplaced and you’re not going to be focused on the things that matter or are relevant.

Having goals also enforces discipline in your dealings and gives you a boost of motivation. A person with goals knows that there is a plan to follow to achieve the goals and that they need to stick to the plan and not falter if they really want to achieve the set goals. There will be no room for laziness or procrastination when a 400HP goal is to be achieved in 7 weeks.

Goal-setting people maximize productivity, and make the best use of their time. Without goals, that post can be done tomorrow or 2 days later. But you publish posts today and everyday because you have goals you need to achieve.

Goals allow you to monitor your progress. Being able to monitor your progress in turn allows you to tweak and make changes to the plan if you feel it is not getting you any closer to your goals.

My Hive goals and strategies to achieve them

If you had asked me what my Hive goals were a week ago(before the setting goals on hive lecture and discord discussion), I most likely would’ve gone on to give you a long list of either unrealistic goals, or maybe goals with no defined time bounds. Now I know what the problem with those goals were. There weren’t SMART. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time Bound. So now, I don’t just have goals, I have SMART goals. Let’s take a look at them.

---

Hive Power Goals

As much as I want to tell you I want to build a 1k Hive Power over this 7-week period, I can’t. You know why don’t you? Cos it’s not Attainable. And once it’s not attainable it’s not really SMART now is it? So here’s my SMART HP goal.
In the 7 weeks of the newbies initiative, I want to raise my HP from the 370HP I currently have, to 650HP.

Strategy to achieve HP goal

Increasing my HP from 370HP to 650HP will require that I add 280HP to my current. Doing a little math, I should add roughly 40HP every week. This is pretty achievable. According to hivebuzz.me, I have an average author HP of 5HP per post. So If I publish 5 posts every week, I would’ve raised 25HP from author HP, and the remaining 15HP, I can get by powering up some of my liquid HBD rewards.

I’m not just trying to build my HP for the sake if building HP. I’m doing it because it is relevant to me. A bigger stake will help curate friends and newbies I onboard. This is my biggest drive to build my stake.

There’s also of course the advantage of having greater influence in the community if you have a bigger stake.

A bigger Hive Power will also allow me earn from curation, aside content creation. With a big enough HP like the ones whale have, you can entirely stop creating and earn solely based on your curation rewards.

Generally, converting my hive to Hive Power is also an investment in a way, and tells the community that I believe in the future of Hive, and that I’m not just here for the short term.

---

Following Goals

I would like to get at least 25 followers over this 7-week journey. It took me 4 months to earn 71 followers. That is basically 17 followers every month.

Strategy to achieve following goal

25 followers will be easy to achieve if I stay active and consistent, and engage with content of other creators. I’m confident I can beat this number because out of the 4 months I’ve been on hive, I spent close to an entire month inactive at some point. My engagement dropped, and so did my posting. I didn’t do this for no reason though. It was due to the start of exam on my school campus, and I had to take some time off Hive to concentrate. I’m sure I could’ve at least made 20 followers a month if that didn’t happen.

---

Engagement

Engagement is key on Hive. The past few weeks, my engagement hasn’t really been top notch like I already explained. I have final year to thank for that haha. However, I did my final year defense today, so I’ll have more time to spend on Hive the coming weeks. Still, I’ll be doing my National Service after graduation so I still won’t be the same engagement god I used to be, but I’ll make at least 735 comments in these 7 weeks.

Strategy to achieve engagement goal

I plan to make at least 15 comments everyday from the start of this initiative until the end, and hopefully maintain this if not better. This will give me at least the 735 comments I aim to have made in the course of the 7 weeks. If this adds to my current number of comments(1,188), I should’ve made 1,923 comments by the time this initiative ends.

---

My consistency goal

Consistency is one of the pillars of growth of Hive if you really think long term. Like I may have slipped up and mentioned already, in the coming 7 weeks, I plan to publish at least 5 posts every week. I won’t have any final year project or exam to write (maybe one underpaid national service job, but I’ll manage it) so I’ll publish posts as much as I can.

Strategy to achieve consistency goal

Since sometimes the reason I don’t publish posts is because of a lack of content, In this 7 weeks, I will join contests and challenges if I ever run out of content topics of my own. This will mostly be contests in the Hiver Learners community and the Weekend Experience Community.

---

Reputation Goals

Again, I really want to say I want to hit a 67 or 68 reputation by the time the 7 weeks elapses, but we all know that’ll be unrealistic as hell. And what was quality of our SMART goals? Attainable.

Anyone that knows how difficult it is to increase your Hive reputation from 60 onward knows the chances of me moving from 61 to 68 is almost close to zero. It’s not impossible, but will be very very difficult to attain.

So for my reputation goals, I want to have a reputation of 64 by the time this initiative ends.

Strategy to achieve reputation goal

Reputation increases based on the the value of the upvotes you get. This means if I want to increase my reputation, I need to be looking towards getting high votes. Publishing quality original content and staying consistent is how I increase my odds of getting high votes.

---

Hive Friend Goals

You might be wondering what the hell I mean by this, but it’s really as simple as the heading says. I want to make 1 Hive friend every week during the initiative’s duration. Followers are not necessarily friends. What this goal is about to make real friends here. I’ve made a few already, and I plan to grow the circle during this time. This goal is probably going to be weird, but it is something I want to achieve too.

Strategy to achieve friend goals

Friendships are built organically, so I will keep engaging on the posts of the people I want to be friends with, and by 7 weeks’ time, I’m sure I would’ve made at least the 7 friends.

Hinderances I might experience in achieving my goals

Somethings just don’t always workout as planned, no matter how hardworking you are, or how smart you are, or how SMART your goals are. I definitely might face some hinderances.

My friend goals might not be achieved because it takes 2 to make friendships work, and no matter how eager I want to be friends with someone, they might not want the same, and that’s okay. The same goes for my follower goals. No matter how interesting my content is, or how much engagement I do, people are not to follow me if they don’t want to, so I might not make my 25 followers (in time anyways).

Also, my HP goes might be hindered by the fact that me earning might not be as much anymore. How much support I get is out of my control. That is up to curators. If I don’t earn as much as I used to, and made my plans based on, there is a very good chance I might not make 650HP in the 7 weeks.

One thing everyone on hive preaches is “Votes are not guaranteed for anyone”. No one owes you an upvote even if you were the best writer on Hive. This places a potential hinderance on my reputation goals.

Finally, my consistency might be hindered by unforeseen events such as inactivity due to illness or like I mentioned, a busy work schedule in my National Service workplace.

---

I want to take the people behind the newbies initiative for the opportunity they’ve given me and other newbies to learn under the guidance of out various team leaders. @nkemakonam89, this is my assignment sensei:)