It may sound crazy, but that is my goal and I am on day 90 (14.5 weeks on the chart) right now and working hard to hit that target in 10 short days. Just so that everyone is aware, I did not invest any 'fiat currency' into my account. All this was accomplished with hard work, meeting new people, being supported by friends, hard work, having a lot of content, hard work and spending 6-8 hours a day blogging.
Why am I sharing this? Because I want people to know that it is possible to not only make a living doing this, but what kind of work is involved. So let me explain a few key milestones that helped me and I hope that some of these will bring you some inspiration or give you some ideas on how to help yourself out.
It helps to have a friend
I have a dear friend @lyndsaybowes who talked to me about steemit as she had been on here for over a year and enjoying it process. When I joined she supported my efforts by not only upvoting my work, but sharing it and talking to people about it as well. I already had over 2000 friends on Facebook, so I was sharing my work there too, which I know has resulted in people coming here to follow my work. Having a friend like @lyndsaybowes who can answer questions, provide hints, insights and mentor-ship helped out tremendously!!! So if you are just starting out, finding a mentor is a wise choice to help bring you up to speed on this platform. It is complex and it takes time to get ones head wrapped around how it works and all the tools you need to get started.
It helps that I caught the eye of an orca on the very first day
@fulltimegeek found me right from day one, most likely due to his relationship with @lyndsaybowes. He has been a supporter of mine ever since and has been a boon to the payouts I was getting with my posts. Make no mistake, good content is always a draw and because I work so hard on my content, I've also drawn the eye of other dolphins, orcas and the odd whale or two. I really do thing that if you are struggling getting seen, befriend the friends of the whales!
Luck with the market also helped me out
This may be of little help for people now, but there was a time when steem dollars were ten times the price of steem. That meant that when I got paid out in a post, I could then sell my steem dollars and get a ten fold increase in steem which really helped when I vested it all. I vested everything I got once I noticed that the prices started to take off. Now that steem is taking off, we can only get about 10% increase when hitting the market. But keep an eye open on the market. If you want to build steem to increase your influence, this is one way to do it.
Living off grid meant that I did not have to withdraw
I must admit that because I live off grid, our need for 'income' from this work was zero. I could spend 6-8 hours a day because it is winter and not worry about bills to pay ... because we only have the phone bill to worry about. As a result, it is easy for me to dedicate copious amounts of time working on my relationships with other people to attract followers, comment on threads and really work the social aspect of social networking. The more time you can dedicate, the better.
Being invited to Stewards of Gondor was a huge boost
At first I noticed that my payouts from @FullTimeGeek dropped to near zero because he had delegated his steem to dozens of other people. I wondered if that would have an impact on my capacity to keep growing my account. But then I noticed that the publicity of being invited to be a Steward of Gondor far outweighed the losses. In social media, publicity is king and good publicity works VERY well. I got more followers after the steem delegation than I had prior and the number of upvotes I was receiving on my posts started to climb. So if you can find your way into a group, it is well worth the effort. How do you do that? Hard work, participating and engaging with people. Begging for upvotes, followers and resteems will actually diminish your reputation on this platform, so don't bother engaging in that kind of activity. Begging shows desperation and people are looking for inspiration! Be inspirational.
Starting Debate Forum as a hit
When I became a Steward of Gondor, I decided to start a weekly debate forum where the proceeds would go to the participants. That way the gift I got from @fulltimegeek could be paid forward. It not only worked out well, but the debates have been getting better and better as people get the hang of the idea. That has no doubt increased traffic to my blog as a result!
Starting 'Stewards of Terra Mater'
I decided to take a page from @fulltimegeek and start my own group with the intent of helping fresh, new steemians get started, especially if they were off-gridders and working hard on their spirituality journey. I delegated up to 99.9% of my steem at one point to help 8 other individuals and the results have been amazing. Not only did I give them a confidence boost and found that they were inspired to work hard and do good work, but it also gave me a boost even though I lost all the voting power as a result of delegating nearly 3700 steem. It may seem weird but my blog was doing better as a result of giving away the lions share of my own steem. We really do receive when we give and it was amazing to be a witness to that effect. Generosity really is rewarded, so be generous and have faith that the rewards will come.
Be of service
If you can help people, do it. Lots of people ask for help here and if you have the capacity to guide people through the technology or other pitfalls, then you have a friend who will visit your blog and support your work. That gets around as people talk.
Content, content, content
Most of you are already aware of the content that I write. Content really is what people are looking for and if you have good content, you will get noticed and your blog can take off. It takes hard work to stand out and produce content that people are willing to read. The fact that you are reading this proves that what I've written here has captured your attention for much longer than most people are willing to give to any single blog entry. Provide information, imagery, music and other art forms that people want to see. My friend @lyndsaybowes does a #walkwithme blog each day and people love it. Why? Because people want to see the world and we all live in on a beautiful planet and every single spot on this planet is unique, exquisite and worthy of exploring. Show people your life, through your eyes! In the end, we all want joy, peace, freedom and love, so shine that brightly through your work. Growth is exponential when you get your stride, so be patient.
Will I make it?
I have 10 days to go and I'm working hard to hit that goal. Even if I don't, my avatar here on steemit will be a dolphin soon and because I write so much content, I don't get a chance to spend too much time on other peoples blogs. I work hard to do that, especially with the members of the Stewards of Terra Mater. But I am on steemit.chat now and I work hard to respond to or at least acknowledge everyone who posts on my posts. I do miss some as steemit has work to do in regards to notifications on comments. But either way, I feel my roll as a dolphin will be to continue with my work and doing my best to support other people so that they can get established here as well. If people could follow what I've done in my blog to get off grid, reduce their cash dependencies and that sort of thing so that they can spend more time here, then you too could be a dolphin in 100 days!
But to manage expectations, for an individual who is working, it is more realistic to spend a year to establish the following and steem power to have influence on steemit. Be patient, work hard, be polite, engaging and come up with ideas that allow people to play, engage, have fun or other sorts of activities. This does not have to be just about reading dry content, but can be fun too! Be creative and get noticed.
All I ask is that we do this peacefully, respectfully and honorably. I hope this helps those who are struggling to get started or get the momentum they want out of their blog.