A Breakdown of My Earnings in November 2021

Sticking for long enough matters a lot.

November was my nine-month on this platform. So yes, it's been a while.

When I started writing I told myself I would do this for at least one year, it was a personal challenge, and hey I am almost there.

From early on I set up realistic goals, I found a system that worked for me and helped me stick around for over six months, which is in my opinion quite a lot already but I will get into that later.

Okay so let’s talk about figures:

Just to give a little bit of context, last month in October I earned 288.27 dollars and I published 9 stories.

This month I earned 586.11 dollars. Yes, that's the double from October.

I published 13 pieces and I took a week off. I wasn't writing, I wasn't posting.

I didn’t visit the platform at all for the last week of November and you can see that is reflected in my views and reads, they decreased.

My views:

My reads:

It's absolutely true that you need to show up incessantly in order to continue to grow in this or any other platform.

However in my case, I was overdoing it and it was affecting my mental health, so I took a break.

Here are three lessons I’ve learned in the past nine months:

-Consistency

Yes, consistency is key and is essential. It's correct that you need to show up time after time, even when is hard.

As James Clear likes to say: “Rome wasn’t built in a day but they were laying bricks every hour.”

The thing that separates top performers from everybody else is not that they don’t make mistakes. They make errors, they make bad choices, they have bad days, but they have a way to always get back on track.

If you want to succeed then you need to find a system, a pace of writing that works for you. Build a writing habit that you can sustain, forget about how often other writers write or publish, focus on what you can do, on what is feasible for you.

To be successful at anything, you don’t need to be different. You simply have to be what most people aren’t: consistent.

-Monetizing Views

This is a very important piece of information:

External views don’t earn money.

In many cases “viral articles” won’t make you a dime. You have probably read or seen posts about how writers with their viral stories only gained a couple of bucks — now, why is this?

Remember external views, come from external readers, readers that are not paying members, so as a result logically you won’t get paid for those views or reads.

So all in all to obsess with views and reads is a waste of time and energy.

What you can do instead is explore the possibilities. Find ways of providing value to others with your content.

You need to add value. Value comes from solving a problem people have. If it doesn’t solve a problem then it’s worth $0. The good news is the problem you solve doesn’t have to be massive. You could simply solve the problem of boredom with hilarious comedy… — Tim Denning

-Laser Focus

Silence distractions.

Writing, editing even selecting the right image isn't easy, it takes effort and concentration so is vital that you develop a laser focus.

In order to do that first, you need to become conscious of what is distracting you.

For example, in my case, it’s my phone, it's the notifications I receive on this website, it’s social media, and so forth.

So now when I am working or when I am writing I don’t have my cellphone at my arm’s length. I keep my phone in a different room and I go check it when I am on my way to the bathroom or when I stretch, so I see it every two hours probably. All my friends and family know that for emergencies they can all call me, so I am not afraid of not having my cellphone around.

I used to get distracted constantly with the notifications from Medium while I was writing, with the emails, with the claps, and all of that. Nowadays I disabled the emails and I don’t open my notifications anymore and those two small changes have helped tremendously to stay focused on what I am writing, I am able to produce more with the same amount of time.

So once again, find ways to stay away from distractions.

To conclude

The fear of starting this blogging lifestyle is real.

The fear of running out of things to write about is real.

Doubting yourself and thinking — who would want to read me anyway? or — what's the point? is common as well.

Feeling overwhelmed at times is real too.

So for that, I like to use this reminder:

Take a deep breath.

Nice, good job!

Have a pleasant one and thank you for reading.