Results From My First Two Months On Medium
Consistency is key, but consistency doesn’t mean daily.
I joined Medium in the last week of March, which means that I have officially been a part of the platform for two months.
During these last two months, I have both learned a lot and dismissed a lot.
What I’ve Learned on Medium
There are countless articles circulating on Medium regarding how to gain 100 followers, make money, and become a top writer. At first, I was intrigued by these articles. I desperately wanted to hit my first 100 followers so that I could begin making money for the work I was putting in. I read the tips and tricks for how to get to 100. And, sure enough, I hit 100 followers within a few weeks of being on Medium.
After gaining 100 followers, I moved on to reading articles that explained how to obtain a dedicated following of readers. One of the main tips these articles shared was to write and post every day. At first, I was on board with this too. These were people who had found success on the platform, so I should listen to them, right? The algorithm favors those who are consistent with their output, so my output should be daily or, maybe even, twice a day.
I started setting my alarm and making long to-do lists to aid in my execution of 7+ articles every week. I wrote down sample topics, made outlines, and sat for hours on the couch writing word after word. And I did post daily, for about three or four days. But that’s when the advice in these articles began to contradict itself.
Post daily, high-quality content through Medium’s publications.
Except, in my opinion, daily and high-quality don’t coexist. For me to write articles with actual merit, I need a few hours to research, write, edit, and post.
In addition to the hours needed per article, the publications on Medium require you to wait before your article is posted. You have to submit the article and wait for the editors to review it. Even when they review it, there is no guarantee that it will be accepted. If it is accepted it might be scheduled for several days out. This is all to say that quality work in publications takes time.
Take. Your. Time.
This has been my largest lesson since joining Medium. However, it isn’t a lesson widely shared in the articles about finding success on the platform. Instead, the articles I have read encourage output, output, output. Post, post, post. But when I took this advice to heart, I felt myself constantly buzzing in a state of anxiety because the reality is that quality work shouldn’t be rushed.
You need to take time to edit, research, and submit to different publications. When you have pressing deadlines looming over your head you can feel like you’re never meeting your own expectations.
So, I moved to a different approach:
- Give yourself a few days in between posting or submitting to create quality concepts and content for your readers.
- Take the weekends off. You won’t be able to stick with this routine if you burn yourself out.
- Don’t stress if a publication takes days to get back to you and your posts are delayed. The posts didn’t disappear. They are simply on hold.
- Consistency doesn’t have to mean daily. It simply means you keep showing up.
What I’ve Dismissed
I run my own mental health counseling practice. I talk with my clients all the time about the importance of balance. Too much of anything — even a good thing — can lead to burnout.
We need balance with our food, work, friends, significant others, leisure, self-care… I could go on. Writing on Medium is no different. I found that the advice to write and post every day was creating stress for something I typically enjoy doing.
Writing is my natural outlet. It is the thing that I consistently turn to sort through my thoughts and process information that I learned. When the expectation to write daily articles was placed on my plate I found I slowly began losing interest. I became frustrated and agitated, complaining that there wasn’t enough time in the day to complete everything I wanted to do. I was falling onto a familiar slope — the slope that leads to burnout.
I decided to stop listening to everyone else’s advice and ask myself what my advice was. If the shadow on the sidewalk or the reflection in the mirror were another copy of myself, what would I tell it? The answer was simple. My advice was to:
Do less.
Do less has been my theme for 2022. As a recovering perfectionist, I find it to be an incredibly challenging task. My default is to overload my plate, take on more projects, eliminate free time, and keep working on my goals.
But, finally, at the age of 27, I am beginning to understand this way of operating leads to perpetual stress and a moving finish line. Each goal that I achieved only leads to the next, and the next, and the next. In turn, I never actually win.
So, I took my advice, knowing that the advice of others wasn’t made for me in the first place.
Results from My First Two Months
Here’s what happened when I started taking my advice about doing less on Medium:
I quadrupled my earnings. I went from $6.49 my first month to $24.84 so far this month.
Not wild amounts of money, but enough success to motivate me to be patient and keep going.
There is this dialogue on Medium that you must do, write, post, follow, and comment every day in order to see results. And maybe my results would have been even greater if I were to dedicate hours each day to my growth on Medium. But the stats I am left with at the end of these two months tell me you can still see results without the pressure of putting out content every day.
Here was my formula for the success I’ve seen so far:
- Post 2–4 times a week with a publication
- Read 5 articles 4–6 days a week
- Comment on 5 articles 4–6 days a week
- Follow 3–5 new people 4–6 days a week
Simple. Gives room for rest. Gives room for days off. Gives room for growth and engagement.
With this formula I have:
- Gained over 600 followers
- Quadrupled my income
- Joined several publications
- Met amazing, encouraging, and talented writers
- Kept writing and reduced feelings of stress
Take Away
There are a lot of articles on Medium that attempt to give you the ticket to success on this platform. A common piece of advice I have read in these articles is to write and post daily. However, for me to produce quality work and submit the articles to publications, I know this isn’t a realistic goal. It is a goal that leads to stress and ultimately puts me at risk for burnout.
Instead, I decided to create my own advice. Advice specific to what I need. This lead to my creation of a loose formula for my engagement on Medium. The formula incorporates days off and time in between articles for research and editing.
With this formula, I have seen success. It is a slow, steady climb proving that consistency on Medium doesn’t have to mean daily.
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