Hello and welcome back to my blog!

This is my fourth year on this blockchain, and today I completed the 14,000 HP milestone in my account. Almost all of it is earned through author or curation rewards. When I came to the blockchain in late 2021, Hive prices were skyrocketing and earning my first hundred HIVE took me some time. At that time, I did not even think of getting close to 14K HP simply by posting. 2021's Pravesh would be proud of me hehe.

I learned a lot during this journey, and I would like to share some of it with the community.

Community is Everything

When I came here, I didn't even know a single soul on the platform, and today I know some awesome people from around the globe. I got to know about some incredible communities, worked in them closely, learning and teaching others, and saw small communities grow bigger and better. Hive is here because of its rich diversity of people who form one of the coolest online communities I have ever experienced. From knowing no one to making many friends and memories together, it has been a fun ride so far.

Practice makes perfect

I was a horrible writer (still pretty bad lol), couldn't even write long sentences and now I can write consistently in a foreign language. This was a long journey, if you ever scroll down and see my early posts, they were badly structured, written poorly and had a lot of mistakes. I have improved a lot on all those things. I still have a long way but if I keep going like this, it will be so much easier.

Also, taking part in some discord conversations on voice helped increase my spoken English too. I even had a Discord show on @ecency lol. If someone like me can have a live Discord show, anyone can! This was all possible because of this blockchain.

Never Stop Learning

I learnt a lot of things by being active in multiple discord groups and asking questions. TheTerminal discord server was perfect for asking all the questions I had about the blockchain and learning a lot. There are always new things happening on Hive, new projects, communities, tokens, games etc. It gets a bit overwhelming trying to catch up on all the news, but still I try to learn at least one new thing every day.

Helping Newbies is so satisfying

I remember the kind of love and support I got when I was trying to learn the ins and outs of this blockchain. I wondered why some people are helping me this much without getting anything in return. It wasn't like they were getting paid to do it. But once I got in a position to teach something to newbies, I got it. It was the pure satisfaction you get. I am constantly scavenging multiple discords for any unanswered questions a newbie might have and trying to help them with the best of my ability. I love doing it and it gives me a way to contribute something back to this wonderful community.

Engagement and Consistency are keys to growth

As the saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day", every good thing takes constant effort and time. Engagement is one of the best ways to grow yourself here. Not just engaging with other posts but participating in community discussions, attending events and shows, even asking questions, etc. There are so many ways one can be engaged in this beautiful, multifaceted chain. And if you add consistency to it, no one can stop your growth here. You can build an empire or maybe a small kingdom at least lol.

So many newbies ask how to grow on Hive, how to get more followers, upvotes, comments, etc, and the very first advice from me is to be more engaging and consistent. After that, it would focus on improving the quality of your content. Learning basic formatting or HTML is easy to learn, but it makes your post look a lot better. As a curator, I often give this advice to improve the formatting of your post. Just a few useful tags will help a lot.

Don't forget to have fun

I know this is so basic, but trust me, so many newbies take it too seriously at times and forget that this is a social media platform to its core. And making new friends and having fun should be a priority. If you are not enjoying the process you won't make it long. It would get too daunting, and you might end up. Besides, what's the point of social media when you can't make some cool friends...right?

Over the years, I have met some incredible people here and continue to make more and more friends with diverse personalities. Attending live talk shows is a great way to socialize and meet people. Or if you are lucky enough, go to a local Hive event and meet the people behind these usernames. I went to a local Hive event recently, and it is weird for the brain to finally put a picture in our brain of what that username looks like.

Thanks to a lot of amazing souls here who helped me in this journey.

Thank you, HIVE!

P.S. Today is HivePowerUpDay, and don't forget to powerup some Hive and help grow your account. I powered up some just to cross the 14k milestone.