When the going gets tough…
I literally cried for an hour on Monday. Spoiler alert, I’m fine now – but lessons learned, I can tell you.
My blog was gone! Like…not there!
WordPress would not sign me in; claiming I didn’t exist.
There was no way this was going to get solved. It was kind of there, but no pictures and the theme was gone.
As someone with no technical ability, I was royally screwed. In fact, I was so stressed that instead of my usual satirical American News shows, I decided to watch some motivational videos to cheer me up.
It was during one of these YouTube Videos that I heard the phrase from Mel Robbins :
“If you have a problem that can be solved with action – you don’t have a problem”
The tough have a good cry…
I have been slowly updating and tidying the blog up, although after that scare on Monday I am not touching anything ever again!
Still not sure how to hide old posts without deleting them though.
When I thought I had lost the blog I had a few options.
Funnily enough – giving up was not one of them.
After having a good cry – because getting on with it doesn’t mean you can’t have an hour or two of pure wallowing in misery first – I had to come up with a plan.
I wrote a list.
Afterwards, I visited websites, looked up YouTube videos, and tried forums. It was important I took action; just writing off all of my work was not an option.
It was then that I remembered another point made in on of the motivational talks.
No man is an island. ( Or woman, or whoever)
There are people out there who know more than you; there are people out there willing to help you. Sometimes, if you are lucky, they are the same people.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Long story short – the blog is back. Well, you’re reading this, so obviously it is sorted.
One thing I learned about myself, was that, after all the crying, I was able to formulate a plan to solve things.
The blog exists in the form of scattered handwritten notes, old word documents and at worst I could have cut and paste bits from the basic shell of a blog that remained.
My ultimate plan, if I could not recover my blog, was to write it all again, as much as I could.
Learning Experience
As it is I have been lucky. What I now need to do is mitigate this happening again.
I’ll be saving more often, that is for sure!
One thing I did worry about when thinking I would have to re-write the whole thing was that I would have lost all of those half-written drafts. I mentioned on twitter the other day that I have about 50 part finished posts and people were horrified!
If this scare has hi-lighted anything, it is that I need to gain more technical knowledge of blogging, as well as finish those posts that are sitting about. But don’t worry, it will get solved…I have a plan.
Over to you
What were some of your tough lessons learned? Did it kick start a change in how you do things? Has it helped you improve?