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It's been four weeks since the end of my seven-month Steemit vacation. That seven months may go down as one of the single biggest missed opportunities of my life.

I first joined Steemit in July 2016 after watching a video on Facebook that my friend @lukestokes posted. At the time, STEEM was trading at about US$4 and a $10,000 or even $20,000 post on the trending page was not uncommon.

Before I wrote my first post, I powered up US$1,000 of my own money. I wasn’t really bothered if the price went down. It was money I could afford to lose. It was more about buying into something I believed in, something that could disrupt both social media and perhaps even the world’s dependency on fiat. I felt it was right to have some skin in the game.

I had some great success in the beginning, with hundreds of upvotes and $4000 in rewards on my first two posts alone. I was so thankful and excited.

From then, I stayed up late and woke up early, almost daily, to write Steemit posts. Burning the candle at both ends, my wife began to ask, “Who is this other woman named Steemit?”

For those next four months I hustled; posting consistently, connecting with some great people, and building a small following. Every single reward I earned I powered up. I never transferred a single cent from the platform.

By November, four months later, the price of STEEM had fallen below 10 cents. As you can imagine, there was some negativity around. Even some of the most popular, trending authors were whinging and complaining about all sorts of stuff.

It was a bit difficult to stay positive, but I believed in the potential of Steemit and enjoyed connecting with people. My plan had always been to persevere no matter how low the price of STEEM went.

But then I hit a wall. We moved across town to a new area; we went to the Gold Coast on a two-week holiday; we got our kids settled into a new school. I had pressure in my business, cash flow challenges, blah, blah, blah.

The bottom line was I had lost the sense of urgency I initially had. Other urgent things crowded Steemit out.

I had always planned to come back to Steemit; but one month away became two, which became three, and then four. Then I thought, well, it’s been so long now I’m embarrassed to go back.

Then one month ago, after seven months away, Bitcoin surged and STEEM rose back above US$2. I visited Steemit and saw that my 6400 STEEM was now worth $15,000. I was overcome with FOMO, and well, here I am one month later.

Some Soul Searching

I’ve been doing some soul searching over the past month, trying to understand how I could have let that happen. Reconnecting with old Steemit friends, most of whom have welcomed me back with great enthusiasm, I’ve tried to think what it must be like from their perspective to see me back, now that the money is good again.

I saw some of the people I had connected with previously on steemit.chat in the postpromotion channel, like @cristi and @razvanelulmarin. They were still consistently posting and reaping the rewards of their consistency. I saw @stephenkendal who started out in the beginning faithfully posting every day for only pennies, and now had a massive following. He too was reaping the rewards of consistency. I saw @churdtzu, @meesterboom, and @fyrstikken all still going strong.

They and many others had all persevered through a long, arduous, and difficult season, and they hadn’t given up. And here I was, after not so much as a comment or upvote for seven months, coming back and posting articles again like nothing had ever happened - re-awakened to the value of Steemit because the price of STEEM had risen.

Thinking about this from their perspective helped me to evaluate my motivation for being on this great platform. At worst I was a selfish, money-hungry leach who was only on Steemit for what I could bleed out of it. At best, I was someone who had failed to see the true value of Steemit - friendship and connection with like-minded people, and an opportunity to serve others.

How My Inconsistency Was a Massive Fail

I look back on this Steemit hiatus as one of the biggest fails of my recent life. Here are the two main reasons why:

1. The future financial impact will likely be enormous.

2. I treated my friendships and the community of people on Steemit as expendable.

Allow me to explain…

The Financial Cost of Leaving Steemit for Seven Months

After four months of hustling on Steemit, and powering up all of my rewards, I built up 6400 STEEM. That’s an average of 1600 per month. Assuming I was able to maintain that pace, over the next seven months, I could have powered up an additional 11,200 STEEM, amounting to a current total of nearly 18,000 STEEM.

That means my inconsistency on Steemit has cost me about $20,000, and that's not even considering the future value of STEEM. If and when STEEM hits a price of $90, that 11,200 STEEM that I failed to earn will be worth $1 million.

That’s a massive cost, and a painful realisation. Inconsistency in business, or any endeavour, leads to missed opportunity.

If I then consider the missed opportunity of investing more of my money in STEEM, the financial cost is even greater. Had I stuck around during those seven months, perhaps I would have had a market awareness that would have provoked me to buy even more STEEM to power up.

At US$0.10, another 10,000 STEEM would have only cost me $1000. Today that would be near $20,000, and at a $100 STEEM price, that’s another million.

The Relational Cost of Leaving Steemit for Seven Months

King Solomon of Israel said, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” That’s Proverbs 22:1 in the Bible.

I will keep posting on Steemit and attempt to make up for the financial cost of my Steemit hiatus. But one thing that’s tougher to earn back is reputation, and according to Solomon, that’s more valuable than STEEM.

Relationships have always been important to me. I consider myself a pretty loyal person in “the real world.” But looking back on my Steemit journey, I have to acknowledge that I haven’t been very loyal. I made friends on Steemit and then just took off, without even saying goodbye.

That’s not the way a friend should act, and I’m sorry for that. It was a big blow to my reputation, but I hope that in time I will prove that it’s not all about the money for me and that I highly value my relationships here.

Not long after returning to Steemit, I connected with @sirknight who, together with some other great people, are doing a phenomenal job organising #teamaustralia. Thanks for all you’re doing to help us connect and build relationships with one another.

What You Can Learn From My Inconsistency:

Consistency is something I've learned and practised in other areas of life to get results - in business, in my personal and spiritual growth, and in my health. But on Steemit, I allowed life pressures and other more urgent things to move me off of my daily writing discipline.

If you’re new to Steemit or you’ve felt discouraged because you haven’t quite received the rewards you were hoping for, hopefully, my story can be an example for you of what not to do.

If you can see my missed opportunity, and what I wish I would have done differently, perhaps it will help you keep going and avoid allowing urgent things in your life to pull you away from the importance of consistently building a following on Steemit.

Here are two key things you can hopefully learn from my failure:

1. Consistency on Steemit is easier when you have a long-term vision.

When you value STEEM, not at its current price but at its future price, it doesn’t matter where the price of STEEM is today. When the price of STEEM was falling, I lost sight of the long-term value of sacrificing daily to keep posting and keep building a following.

2. Consistency on Steemit is easier when you focus on building genuine relationships.

The real value on Steemit is found in building a following. This requires that you not only have a heart to serve others by consistently producing valuable content for others, but that you build genuine friendships with people here. Those relationships form a sort of tribal accountability that will help you persevere through challenges and difficulties.

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money down the drain
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Is there anything you wish you had done differently since you first signed up on Steemit?

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Jason Staggers