The Only Piece of Advice You’ll Ever Need to Make It on Medium

Assume you have 1 million words inside of you, and they’re all rubbish — get them all out

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Please, do us both a favor. Make this piece the last one you read on the subject of “how to become successful on Medium.” That way, my other posts (not about Medium) will get more views, and you’ll spend more time doing the only thing that matters: writing.

I’ve been writing on Medium daily since October 2019. Since then, I published more than 200 pieces on this platform. And if I look back on what pieces got the highest exposure, follower growth, and made the most money — 80% of them are about Medium:

I Published 40 Articles on Medium in October

I Made $616.93 in My Second Month on Medium

What I’ve Learned Writing on Medium Every Day for 90 Days

What It Really Takes to Get 1,000 Followers on Medium

Almost every day, I see another writer who wrote something similar, like, “I Made $10230123192839 in one week on Medium” — and I always think to myself, “Good for you. Now what?”

I think that people who spend too much time reading posts like this will probably never become successful on Medium.

Do you know why?

Because reading these posts is a form of procrastination.

It’s preparation. You want to know the “secret” that will make you a better writer and help you turn your writing hobby into a full-time income.

And I get that. I used to look for secrets too. I used to search for a “hack,” and I used to think that people who “made it” (on Medium or elsewhere) know something I don’t.

The truth is, there is no secret.

You achieve success on Medium the same way you achieve success in almost anything in life: by being patient — doing something regularly for a long time and becoming better at it. That’s 80% of success.

The “Success-on-Medium” articles are the other 20% — they talk about tactics, details, little nuances, all of which don’t matter unless you get the 80% right.

When I realized that, I exhaled. Then I got back to work.