A New Dolphin - Thanks To You!

It's been a while since I had a milestone post. I remember getting overly excited about getting my first few payouts, that led to a post I titled; How 15 Minutes a Day for 30 Days in Steemit Paid for My Phone Bill. Milestones are important for many aspects of life. During my tenure in the corporate world, "milestones" is a term most often used in project management, typically to mark and celebrate an important achievement most specially those that are delivered within the project timeline. In life, "milestones" are pretty much anything indicating progress or development; like a baby's first few steps on his/her own, a toddlers first word or words, every graduation ceremony in school, getting married, having your first kid, 50 years wedding anniversary, among many others.

In Steemit, milestones are set in quite a few yardstick. Looking at the trending page for the tag milestone, we would see Steemians celebrating their anniversaries in the platform, or thanking their hundreds or thousands of followers. There are our fellow Steemians who announce getting to a certain reputation score, or having published thousands of posts and comments.

The milestones announced by Steemians usually involved gratitude for the support they got from the community in achieving those that are important to them, and this one is no different. I've always felt that Steemit is more of a marathon than a sprint. In contrast sprinters typically have the goal of finishing first, while marathoners have to plan and persevere to run the whole 26 miles; occasionally aiming to break his/her own previous record. In a marathon, surpassing ones own previous performance is usually more important than beating everyone else, actually finishing is more important than finishing first.

From early on, I have given building Steem Power importance. I have written a few articles about powering up, encouraged it in my writing, and even went to several cities in the Philippines to promote powering up. Here's a few posts I wrote about powering up.

• Bulacan Meet Up Power Up Challenge Results
• SteemPH Meet Up Caravan Power Up Challenge
• Is Powering Up More Profitable?: A Data Analysis
• A Steemit Short Story: "Delayed Gratification"
• What I Bought with My Steemit Earnings
• 🍆❤📚 Nearly 💯 Days in Steemit | Who Am I, What I've been Doing, & Steemit Plans🐟 🐬🐳

I've always felt that community building and involvement are at the core of Steemit. My exposure to data however, says that it is really only beneficial for the members of communities when the group holds enough Steem Power to support its members. In my earlier contributions to @utopian-io exploring country specific tags, I have stablished a direct correlation between the growth of communities/countries' user-base, and the Steem Power holding of it's members. I used this knowledge to really drive powering up in every way I know; my thoughts around the benefits of powering up, an analysis of actual data to show how much more profitable powering up can be, a fiction story about accumulating Steem Power and its role in the long-term, and contests to encourage powering up.

My personal favorite however, is being an example. Powering up by process is fairly easy, there's been tons of tutorials on how to do it. The more difficult parts are the discipline involved in delaying the gratification from the hard-earned rewards, and believing that Steemit will continue to do relatively well compared to say ten months ago when my account was created. From then until now, I still believe us, and anyone who will join until the end of this year to be early adaptors still. While many will attempt to operate the same business model as Steemit, the platform is likely to maintain its leadership at least until something truly great comes up. Even when another great platform comes up, they will have to spend time building a name and reputation for themselves.

Because of accumulating Steem Power, I am able to spread my upvotes across many communities, who supports me in return. Even at a lower voting weight, my upvote still gives a few cents of rewards, and a full upvote is valued at an amount which can give a decent meal from where I am. I want to thank all of you who have supported me in my journey so far. And if you haven't been doing it yet, power up! and together, let's bring our communities to greater heights.

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_{Special thanks to the @sndbox incubators and my fellow cohorts in alpha, my @steemph family, the #blockchainbi community, and my fellow qurites in @qurator}

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Credits:

Dolphin Badge - @steemitboard
Street Marathon - Pixabay
Team Hand-Stack - Pixabay
Electronic Car Plugged In - Pixabay
Thanks Scrabble Letters - Pixabay