I Made $16.98 on Medium and Celebrated my A** Off

Well, I let myself buy 2 donuts as a reward, which is basically the same thing.

I hopped onto Medium with a detailed 3-month “strategy for success” on the 10th of this month. I’ve still got more than 2 months to go, but after a long and intense 10-day sprint of posting every single day, travelling endlessly through Medium’s content rabbit hole, and countless dedicated hours of writing, drafting, editing, repeat… I waited impatiently for my pay estimate to come through.

Waited.

Waited.

Waited waited waited.

And then, after the millionth refresh, BAM. I looked at the single digit dollars, and the odd cents here and there, scrolling and scrolling until I got to the bottooommm…

Yes!

$16.98!

Yes, this counts. Because EVERY bit of growth counts.

First off, in case it wasn’t clear, I’m a firm believer in celebrating the wins, no matter how small, no matter how mundane.

I know very well by now that every little bit of forward motion counts, and when you press on, continuing to put in the work, all of those teeny-tiny little wins add up to big, massive, life-changing wins.

As soon as my estimate was posted, I called my fiancé at work to tell him. Bless his heart, he gave a big and mighty, “Whoop!”

He was once an entrepreneur as well, so he gets it.

And being the brilliant accountant that he is, he adds, “You know honey, that’s a 1,100% profit increase.”

That’s true! I must celebrate even more! But how will I celebrate… I know, I’ll get a donut (I’ve been craving one for weeks).

NAY.

I shall get TWO donuts!

It may seem foolish, and perhaps you wouldn’t have celebrated as much as I did, but the fact of the matter is that when you look at the numbers, and you are seeing growth, that is cause to believe that there is more growth to come, if only you keep working hard and stay on course.

It’s a simple mathematical equation:

hard work + grit + long-term dedication = eventual success

While I may have dropped out of Grade 12 math, I know this equation to be true from my own experience.

It’s easy to assume there’s no progress if we’re not keeping record.

When we’re in the midst of the grind, we can get lost in the day-to-day hustle. We can miss a lot when we’re exclusively putting our heads down and getting to work.

Every now and then, we’ve got to look up from our laptop screens and reflect on how far we’ve come, and exactly what it took along the way to get us here.

If we’re not recording our strategies and steps, whether they worked or failed, we won’t know which practices to replicate for favourable results in the future.

Or, more importantly, we won’t remember exactly what failed, and for that reason we will repeat the same mistakes without knowing it over and over again, expecting a different and more favourable outcome every time.

And that, my friends, is the legitimate definition of insanity.

So celebrate your wins of each and every size, to keep you sane and keep you motivated to continue on hustling.

Is becoming part of Medium’s 10% even possible?

I read from February’s Medium Partner Program update that only 9% of active MPP members made over $100 last month.

Damn. 9% is a small number.

And then to dwindle that percentage even smaller to, let’s say, less than 4–5% who make more than $500 a month… yikes.

That made me kind of nervous at first, I’m not going to lie. Because yeah, I’ve been talking about how numbers matter, so statistically speaking the odds wouldn’t be in any of our favours.

Good news is, you don’t have to be a helpless bystander in this game of “who will make the top 5%?”. Whether you get there or not depends completely on, well… you.

Consider these conclusions on how to achieve your goals and try telling me I’m wrong:

• consistency is key
• hard work pays off
• long-term commitment to goals will produce fruit
• as long as one is adaptable one will always find a way, and
• the easiest way to guarantee failure is to give up

Do you agree?

Let’s say you do.

Then that means that the only thing standing in your way to getting to where you want to be is… yup, you guessed it. You.

I did it once with my first business — who says I can’t do it again?

And who says you can’t do it, too?

Stop being your own biggest obstacle.

Be cautious of telling others their dreams are unobtainable or delusional — you’re doing yourself a great disservice as well when you say this, because you are indirectly limiting your own mind and ambitions.

You’re telling yourself to believe in restrictive limits.

Limiting the truly limitless options you have in front of you is a guaranteed way to stunt your chances of achieving the best life you’re capable of, or becoming the best version of you that you can be.

Don’t be so cruel as to limit the possibilities of what you can become. You don’t deserve to do that to yourself, or your spirit.

You were made for more than that.

And you know what? All you’re really doing, by limiting your possibilities, is giving yourself permission to remain an inactive participant in your own life.

You say you’re “being realistic”, but all I hear are excuses.

You deserve to strive for absolutely anything and everything.

So just stop.

Stop limiting yourself.

Stop the excuses.

Stop the naysaying.

And START going for the gold.

Let’s make a promise to meet at the finish line to congratulate each other once we get there. Deal?

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